


A Standing Engagement

by betts



Series: Love on Display [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Antagonistic Banter, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff, Forced Prostitution, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Intercrural Sex, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Torture, Psychosis, Public Sex, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, a fucked up dystopian rom com, don't let the tags fool you this is a rom com
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:01:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 16
Words: 56,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25317220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: Finnick watched her intently, as if to study her. He was still smiling. Was he always smiling? Didn’t it hurt his face after a while?Annie squinted up at him and asked, “Do I know you? From home, I mean. School.”Something flickered across his face — a slight dip of his perfectly plucked eyebrows, a twitch of the corners of his lips. Then it was gone. “I was homeschooled,” he offered, grinning like she was interviewing him for a TV special. “Well, boatschooled.”Or: At her 18th birthday party, District 4 expatriate and rising-star chef, Annie Cresta, meets the infamous victor-turned-escort, Finnick Odair. Homesick and depressed, she hires him for his most prized service: pretending, just one night a month, to be in love with her.
Relationships: Annie Cresta/Finnick Odair
Series: Love on Display [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1881280
Comments: 486
Kudos: 293





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I first read The Hunger Games in 2010 and have held a grudge against Suzanne Collins for killing off Finnick Odair ever since. I'm sorry it's taken a decade for my rage to manifest in a novel-length, plot-filled, world-building heavy fix-it fic, but I guess it's better late than never.
> 
> The tags make this fic seem dark, but I don't think it's any darker than canon. Please note I've chosen not to warn, mostly because Finnick's forced prostitution is canon; consent is therefore pretty ambiguous in this story and a core element of the conflict. I've done my best to tag for everything else.
> 
> I'm writing from book canon, not movie canon, so physical descriptions and other details default to the books. Annie is not a particularly well-drawn character in canon, and she's referred to mainly as "the mad girl," a term I don't like, but I hope this fic offers a more nuanced and sensitive perspective of trauma-induced psychosis. Also, there are many conflicting maps of Panem, but I describe District 4 to be on (what remains of) the southwest coast, and the Capitol to be in Denver-ish.
> 
> I aim to update twice a week.

About thirty people jumped out of the shadows to yell “Surprise!”

Annie, who had just entered her friend Mea’s apartment, screamed. She dropped her purse and all her things fell out. Her hands flew to her ears. She nearly collapsed. Seeing she was not in danger, she snipped off the scream with a laugh, her hands found her cheeks instead of her ears, and she caught herself on the door frame before she fell. This was the Capitol, and even if she had curled up in a ball and started weeping, they would only think she was doing it out of excitement and gratitude.

Duncan came over and helped with her purse, and everyone was having a good laugh at a surprise well done as they refilled their drinks and tiny plates. He had recently colored his hair with a special phosphorescent dye so it glowed like the moon at night.

When Annie’s purse was all sorted, she stood, and Mea’s spindly arms flew around her. “Happy birthday, darling!” She had the high, squeaking voice of a distressed mouse.

From her other side, Duncan joined in to make what they called “an Annie sandwich,” and all Annie could do was gently pat their arms and say, in her most affected Capitol accent, “Thank you, really. What a lovely surprise.” 

Annie had lived in the Capitol for six years. She’d gotten used to the fashion expectations, the constant preening, the purging, the shifted diurnal cycle, and the ever-present monitoring. She had not, however, gotten used to parties, and certainly not as the guest of honor. 

Dozens of taloned hands shook hers and neon-coated mouths wished her happy birthday as she made her way to the bar. Mea held so many parties that the bar, stage, and dance floor were permanent fixtures in her apartment. Annie sat down and tried not to make her exhaustion and anxiety apparent, though she could feel every muscle in her body lock. Her heart hammered up to her throat. Her hands were trembling, and it took all her willpower not to flee this place screaming. A surprise party for Annie Cresta. How could anyone get her so wrong?

These were her friends, she reminded herself. Well, coworkers. Some of them, anyway. It seemed to be one of those parties where one person invited a couple people, who invited a couple more, and so on, until the entire restaurant-working community of the Capitol had shown up. 

The bartender, an Avox, passed over a drink with two lit sparklers in it. Annie was not allowed to say thank you, but she did offer what she hoped was meaningful eye contact before she plucked the sparklers out and downed the entire thing. 

The music was loud, the people were loud, and suddenly there were several moments, perhaps entire minutes, unaccounted for, and she had two more sparklers in her hand and another drink. Maybe if she got drunk enough, she could excuse herself and go home. Mea and Duncan knew she didn’t like to purge. It was one of those things that was normal for most people, but everyone could understand and even respect why you wouldn’t want to, especially a girl from the Districts.

The best she could do was glue her butt to the chair and allow people to come to her. And they did. Capitol people were very touchy. Many of them, even those she didn’t know, came over to wish her a happy birthday. They slung their arms over her shoulders, peppered her with kisses, pet her hair as they might a small dog. Nearly all of them wanted to take a picture with her, and she knew she’d be all over the Food & Life section of the newspaper tomorrow. RESTAURANT MOGUL HEIR TURNS 18.

While Mea rattled on mouseishly about how much work she’d put into the party, Annie saw across the room a face she recognized. He was exactly as he was on television, except larger somehow, as if his presence took up more space than his body. Just yesterday, she’d seen him at the tail-end of the Victory Tour, not that she paid much attention to that sort of thing. His hair seemed to be a little bit of everything, blonde at the tips but a reddish, brownish color at the roots. Today it was stylishly mussed, and he was wearing shiny gold pants with a mesh shirt that exposed his midriff, which was annoyingly tan and toned. Across his cheeks were streaks of gold blush, but compared to the others, he looked nearly casual.

“Mea,” Annie interrupted. “Did you invite Finnick Odair?”

Mea had the audacity to look around and ask, “Where?”

“Over there.” Annie gestured with her drink. It sloshed over the side onto her hand. A group of people had gathered around him, but he was so stunning they were all invisible by comparison. In the black light, his perfect teeth and the whites of his eyes glowed.

“Would you look at that,” Mea said slyly. “Finnick Odair is at _your_ birthday party.” Before Annie could demand answers, Mea got swept up by somebody wanting to compliment the catering. A cursory glance at the food tables adorned with a fleet of shrimp boats told Annie that her father had something to do with it. She doubted he’d even offered Mea a discount.

For the first time in what felt like hours, no one was demanding her attention, so Annie snuck out the door onto the much quieter balcony. Inside was so hot that steam rippled out of the crack in the door. The temperature was only just bearable; the force field kept the space from reaching the frigid January cold. She’d read once that the force fields were installed during the Dark Days, when the Districts had cut the Capitol’s food supply off and people were jumping off buildings in lieu of starving to death. After she'd learned that, she found it hard to walk down the street without wondering who had once fallen to their deaths on that very sidewalk.

She leaned over the railing and stared down thirty stories, wondering if she might vomit up her sparkler drink. Finnick Odair — victor, Capitol heartthrob, occupant of the front page of every tabloid — was at her birthday party. Why? Who could she possibly know who knew Finnick Odair well enough to invite him? Compared to the Districts, the Capitol was rich, sure, but within the Capitol, there were still two distinct classes: people who worked and people who didn’t. The former always had less than the latter, and Finnick Odair was clearly part of the latter. He had no reason to be here among working-class revelers. 

Unless he’d heard of her? No, she reasoned. He couldn’t have. Cresta’s did well, but not well enough for Finnick Odair to have eaten there, found out her name, and come to her birthday party just to meet her.

She let her arms hang over the railing and braced all her weight at her hips. Slowly she tilted forward, until she was nearly upside down. She pretended it was the Dark Days and there was no force field, and everyone around her was starving and miserable. She could submit to gravity's insistent pull, and would inevitably land, and that would be it for her. But it would be worth it, she thought, for the fall. 

The door opened. She jumped and lost her balance, could feel herself slipping over the railing. A voice behind her said, “Whoa,” and two hands plucked her up at the waist and set her on her feet.

The voice and hands belonged to Finnick Odair, who had somehow made it out to the porch without his harem of devoted fans. “You okay?” he asked. She was surprised by the concern on his face, which was, she admitted reluctantly, very pretty. More so even than what he looked like on television or from across the room. She had moved to the Capitol the year of his Games. It was the first year her name would have been put in, and she always wondered what might have happened if her father had never dragged her to the Capitol. If she would have gotten reaped with Finnick, entered the Games with him, been killed by him. Or perhaps she would have been reaped later, and he would have been her mentor, trying fruitlessly to keep a sad, suicidal girl alive. 

“I’m fine,” she said, “thanks,” and slumped onto a chair. Perhaps she was tipsier than she thought. It was bothering her, that she felt like she knew him from somewhere but couldn’t place it. Possibly his ubiquitous presence across every screen in the Capitol had branded his face into her brain.

He popped his hip against the railing and watched her intently, as if to study her. He was still smiling. Was he always smiling? Didn’t it hurt his face after a while? 

She squinted up at him and asked, “Do I know you? From home, I mean. School.”

“I don’t know. Do you?”

She remembered a boy who looked like him but couldn’t have been him. The fisherman’s son. Something awful had happened to that boy but she couldn’t remember what, and recalled thinking — quite cruelly — that she didn’t care because she hadn’t liked him anyway. But her memory had been punched with holes, entire months at a time blackened to ash, and only patches of color remained. Snapshots, single moments stilled for her to look upon as if hanging on a wall. The fisherman’s boy had crooked teeth and freckles, curly dark hair. But he was only a fuzzy photograph tucked away with the rest of her bad memories. 

“If I knew you, I don’t remember you,” she said. 

Something flickered quickly across his face — a slight dip of his perfectly plucked eyebrows, a twitch of the corners of his lips. Then it was gone. “I was homeschooled,” he offered, grinning like she was interviewing him for a TV special. “Well, boatschooled.”

“Tell me, Finnick Odair,” she said, plucking up her drink, whose sparklers had finally wound down. “Do you like it here?”

“I _love_ it. Don’t you?”

A laugh burst from her throat. “I love it as much as I love working for my father.”

His smile wavered again. She was beginning to think he was nervous. It gave her a profound sense of satisfaction, like stomping on a frozen lake, reveling in the enormity of the crack rippling out beneath her feet. On her list of things she’d gotten used to about the Capitol, she’d learned to shroud her criticisms in ambiguity. Every street was monitored by cameras and slow-rolling vans that picked up private conversations and analyzed them for mutinous content. Even expressing irritation about taxes earned you a passive-aggressive stock letter reminding you of the importance and necessity of taxation, and a single penny missed would be punishable by “community service,” by which they meant, cutting out your tongue.

“I’ve been to your restaurant,” Finnick said, with the vapid, indulgent tone everyone in the Capital used, as if every utterance were a juicy piece of gossip.

“My condolences to your gastrointestinal tract."

He let out a surprised laugh that didn't sound forced, and it was nearly as satisfying as his potential-yet-baffling nervousness. She had been wanting to limit the menu’s butter usage for ages, but her father insisted “butter brings business” and maintained his commitment to offering goblets of fat with each order. The food was good, but enough of it would stop your heart. 

“We did the lowcountry boil," he said. "I loved it.”

“Thank you.”

“You're young for a chef.”

“What can I say? I have a calling for boiling things to death.”

Finnick looked out at the Capitol with all its twinkling neon lights and blaring advertisements. “It reminded me of home. The food, I mean.” He sounded like he meant it, but the false smile belied his sincerity. The menu’s closeness to the District 4 experience was precisely the reason for their success. The place was even decorated like a boat. Rather, what a Capitol citizen might think a boat looked like.

“Do you ever stop smiling?” she asked.

“Why would I want to stop smiling?”

Anyone listening in would take the statement for an admission of happiness, but the sarcastic glint in his eyes said otherwise. 

She fell silent and pretended to have no more interest in their conversation, not because she was out of things to say, but wanted to see what he would do. A normal partygoer would get bored and go inside, but Finnick only seemed to double-down. His eyes went dark and he said, “You know, I didn't expect you to be so beautiful.”

She ignored the flipping feeling in her stomach and frowned into the melting dredges of her drink. _Expect._ There were a lot of implications in that. 

“Don't flatter me just because it's my birthday,” she said.

“I swear to you, you're the most beautiful person here.”

She smelled like fish and butter. She was still wearing her chef jacket and her hair was matted down with sweat. If she hated the Capitol’s insistence on ever-present beauty slightly less, she might have been embarrassed to look like this at her own party. Instead it was only relieving to know the shallowest attendees would avoid her and not want to take her picture. Whichever shot made it to the paper tomorrow would surely be the most unflattering of them. It was fine. She would rather be ugly and make good food than beautiful and used-up by the Capitol. Like Finnick Odair.

“I think that honor goes to you,” she said. It sounded like a compliment, but she meant it as an insult.

“Guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.”

“I know you're lying. It's what you do.”

He didn't seem offended by the accusation. She wondered if anything offended him, or if he was just one of those people who rolled with every punch, no matter how hard it landed. “What is it I do?”

“You make people believe you're interested. You're a flirt.”

“‘Flirt’ is a kind way of putting it.”

She continued staring at him, again to goad him into some kind of reaction that wasn’t an on-camera smile. He only stared back as if to win some kind of game. They had the exact same eyes, she realized, the color of the sea at dawn, and it was as eerie as it was comforting. The eyes of her people. Of home. 

“I get the sense you’re not having any fun, Annie Cresta.” He took a step closer. He was standing and she was sitting, so the movement placed his golden crotch in the unfortunate vicinity of her face, like a gift for her to unwrap. Obnoxious. “I can help you have fun."

She stood. He stayed planted where he was, which put her just an inch away from him. She had to crane her neck up to look him in the face. He hadn’t seemed so tall from afar, but close up she didn’t even come to his chin. She wobbled on her feet on the best of days, and with several drinks in her, she had to steady herself on the railing. He had a daring, maniacal look on his face, though what he wanted from her, she couldn’t tell. She found herself hating him simply because she couldn't read him. 

She smiled sweetly and emptied her eyes of any feeling, so he could see himself reflected in her. “I would rather shove a sparkler up my ass, Finnick Odair,” she said, and went back inside.

* * *

Her plan worked. She was now so drunk that people were giving her dirty looks. It was tasteless to get this trashed without purging. She could tell she’d crossed a line when people finally stopped touching her. It was ridiculous, how hypocritical the Capitol was sometimes. If you didn’t drink enough, you were a prude. If you drank too much, you were a lush. 

As a bonus, she was no longer anxious. She went to find Mea and Duncan and told them, “I gotta go.” Around Capitol people, she tried to speak like them, but she could no longer force her tongue to shape the sharp consonants and rounded vowels of their dialect.

Duncan was clearly on some kind of drug, and in lieu of a reply, he spun away from them, arms out, shouting, “I’m twirling! Twirling!” and continued spinning across the dance floor until he hit a wall and fell. 

Mea pulled her aside and said, “But we’re just getting started!” Her pointed nails dug into Annie’s arm. She had opal veneers that made her teeth look like tiny jewels, and her hair dye was the rainbow-black of an oil slick.

Annie didn’t like staying out past two in the morning. Her body preferred sleeping and waking with the sun, but in the Capitol, people partied through the night and slept until noon, unless you were in the working class, and then you replaced sleep with amphetamines. Not partying was not an option for anyone between the ages of fifteen and sixty. 

She didn’t wait for Mea to argue her down. “Thank you for the party! I had an oh-so _lovely_ time,” she said, then stumbled toward the door. She found her coat draped over a couch, but couldn’t figure out how to put it on. For some reason, she thought taking the stairs was a better idea than the elevator, and only made it down the first half-flight before slipping on the last step and landing hard. She was fine, she thought, and decided to just lie there a minute, curled in a ball clutching her coat against her chest. The room started to spin. It reminded her of being out at sea during a storm.

A now-familiar pair of hands were hauling her upright. “You okay?” Finnick Odair asked for a second time. 

“I’m going home,” she said. “It’s a few blocks —” She flung her arm in the direction she thought was east, and nearly smacked Finnick in the process. “— that way.”

“I’m coming with you.”

“I don’t even _know_ you.”

“Sure you do,” he said amiably as he hoisted her onto her feet. “Everyone knows me.”

“Arrogant,” she muttered, and refused to admit how strong and warm his body felt against hers.

He flashed his stupid smile at her. “Name three things you know about me.”

She held up one finger. “You’re from District Four.” Second finger. “You’re the youngest victor in history.” Third finger. “You were boatschooled and that’s why we weren’t friends.” She frowned. “Would we have been friends? Or were you an arrogant asshole even before the Games?”

In her head, everything she was saying was very eloquent, but her tongue felt thick and heavy, and she was doubtful she had managed to land the phrase “arrogant asshole” to the acerbic degree she’d intended it.

“I was always an arrogant asshole,” Finnick said. “But we still would’ve been friends.”

Suddenly Mea was hovering over them at the top of the stairs, giving Finnick the look she usually reserved for Annie that said “I have something I have to tell you _right now._ "

“Excuse me just a moment,” Finnick said, and carefully leaned Annie against a wall, like a big box labeled FRAGILE. She was, though. Fragile. She knew that about herself.

Annie should have used the moment to escape both of them, but her curiosity wouldn’t allow it. Mea was speaking harshly to Finnick at the top of the landing. Annie couldn’t catch what was being said, except a lot of angry S-sounds from Mea and Finnick coming off as charmingly apologetic. How did Mea know Finnick well enough to hiss at him? She was a hostess at Cresta’s and only spoke like that to bussers who weren’t clearing off their tables quickly enough. 

(For all his attempts at assimilating into Capitol culture, Annie’s father refused to hire Avoxes to run food, wash dishes, and bus tables. Instead he had a competitive “internship” program in which teenagers could work at the restaurant to “build character” and “gain valuable experience.” Having lived their whole lives spoiled and entitled, they were naturally terrible at everything they did.)

She heard Finnick say “I’m not” and then lean in closer, and she couldn’t hear the rest. He finished with “want me.”

More hissing from Mea. Finnick beaming like a crazed lighthouse. Mea turning on her heel and heading back to the party. Finnick coming down the stairs. 

“What was that about?” Annie asked. 

Finnick wrapped her arm around his shoulders and swept her up at the back of her knees. “She was asking me to escort you home.”

Annie swatted lightly at his head. “Put me down. I can walk on my own.”

“You fell down the stairs.” 

“I did that willingly and of my own volution. Vulotion.” 

“Volition.”

She began plucking at his cheek, trying to force his smile down. His face was like iron. “Will you stop it? Will you stop smiling?”

“I’ll stop smiling when you stop giving me a reason to smile.”

She jammed her fingers into his dimples. They were deep enough to fit pocket change. “Do you think up those lines on the spot, or do you rehearse them in advance?” Before he could answer, she said, “Why are we going down thirty flights of stairs?”

“Would you rather take the elevator?”

“Of course I would rather —”

He kicked open the door at the next level, twenty-five. Someone was throwing a party down here and the floor throbbed with a heavy bassline. There was a guy waiting for the elevator and Annie made a disparaging sound. “Here we go,” she said.

The man was clearly on some kind of drug that made him sallow-looking and slumped, like melted ice cream. To his credit, he didn’t immediately ask for Finnick’s autograph. In the elevator, Finnick finally set Annie down, though he kept an arm around her waist. As soon as the doors shut, the man lifted his camera and took their picture.

Annie grinned at him. “It’s my birthday, you know.”

“Hap —” the man began, but she yanked his camera out of his hand. It was a cheap, disposable thing from District 3.

“What a lovely gift,” she said, dropped it to the floor, and stomped on it, over and over, until only shattered pieces remained.

The elevator stopped on twelve and the doors opened. Before the guy could hurry out, Finnick handed him a card and said, “Call that number. I’ll make sure you get a replacement.” When the man scurried away, Annie kicked the camera pieces at him. 

The doors closed. “Sure we would have been friends?” Annie asked.

He was still fucking smiling. “Positive.”

* * *

They finally made it out of the building. The ground seemed to sway violently and she realized how far gone she actually was. Before they reached the first surveillance camera, Annie stopped Finnick and said, “If you walk me home, we’ll be on the front of every tabloid in the Capitol.”

Technically the cameras were for “public safety,” but journalists paid off the Peacekeepers for footage. 

“I think that’s the point,” Finnick said.

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. Look, you’re going to be on the front of the tabloids anyway for getting blasted at your own birthday. You’re either a sloppy drunk, or you’re fucking a victor. Choose your headline.”

He was right. It was exceptionally rare to ascend from the Districts to the Capitol, and those who did were scrutinized endlessly by the media. It was all Annie could do to keep a low profile, and she did that by living a life so boring that no one wanted to waste page space on her. Until tonight, she had never done anything to warrant more than a passing mention in articles dedicated to her father. 

“Fine,” she said, launching herself away from him and nearly falling over in the process, “but I’m walking on my own.”

Surprisingly, he honored her wish, although she sensed he was keeping a close eye on her — and a hand at her back — in case she stumbled. Condensation clouded out of her lips. She wrapped herself more tightly in her coat. “Aren’t you cold?” 

“Yes.”

Surprised by his honesty, she took off her coat and handed it to him. He looked at her incredulously. 

“Well?” she asked. “Take it.” She was still wearing her chef jacket, which was warm enough. Certainly better than a mesh midriff top. The coat was an old one of father’s before he had the thinning surgery that made him drop a hundred pounds almost overnight. Not even butter-loving restaurateurs were allowed to be fat in the Capitol. 

“You’re really something else,” Finnick said. She couldn’t tell if it was an insult or a compliment. He took the coat. When he saw how big it was, he said, “Why don’t we share?”

Considering that her fingers were already going numb, she huddled close to him and he put the coat around both of them, and together they made their way down the street. She could almost feel the cameras pivoting to follow them, could sense the Peacekeepers reaching out to journalists to ask if what they’d found was juicy enough to pay for. 

“Well, thank you,” she said when they reached her apartment building. She fished in her purse for her keycard. “It was nice meeting you.”

Under the yellow light of the street lamps, Finnick looked even more golden. “You’re not going to invite me up?”

“Why would I invite you up?”

“Why wouldn’t you?”

“I’m eighteen years old, I’m wasted, and I’m a virgin. I’m not going to fuck you, Finnick Odair.”

The flicker across his face again. A fraction of a second’s hesitation. “I’m not asking you to fuck me, Annie Cresta. I’m asking you to invite me inside.”

His insistence was out of character. After only having seen him on television and spoken to him for a handful of minutes, she could already tell he wasn’t the type to push. Why would he? He had the entire country weeping at his feet. She wondered what he could possibly want from her, to act against his carefully crafted persona, to risk his reputation like this. 

She glanced up at the camera facing the front entrance of her bubble-gum-pink building. It would make her look good tomorrow, to deny the great Finnick Odair entrance into her apartment. But it would make him look bad. Very bad. Disastrously bad. There was a good chance something more interesting had happened tonight that would make the news of Annie Cresta bedding Finnick Odair seem mundane. After all, it was what he did every night of his life. However, no one had ever said no to Finnick Odair, and to do so, especially as an undesirable — and therefore desperate — girl from the Districts, would be the most interesting thing to happen since the Victory Tour had ended twenty-four hours ago. News moved fast in the Capitol, and people didn’t like waiting long for new drama.

She told herself he was a stranger, a powerful one at that, and she should be afraid of him. But he reminded her so much of that boy she used to know back home, the one buried in her fractured memory for reasons she couldn’t quite reach, and so he visited her in her dreams. He helped her finish her chores quickly and dragged her outside to play. She was afraid of the water, so he held her hand and took her, step by patient step, into the ocean. 

She wondered what Finnick Odair’s real hair color was, if freckles peppered the skin beneath his makeup, if his teeth had ever been crooked. But it didn’t matter; it was just another cruel trick of her memory, an overlay of a famous face onto a vague portrait. The golden man in front of her was not the fisherman’s boy.

She found her keycard, unlocked the door, and held it open for him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning for verbal and physical abuse

Annie had barely made it upstairs and into her bathroom before her sparkler drinks came back up. So much for not purging. She probably should have been embarrassed, not only about puking in front of _the_ Finnick Odair, but by her nuclear disaster of an apartment. One of the few good things about being so disconnected, she guessed, was that she was nearly incapable of shame.

Finnick brought her a glass of water and held her hair back. She let him, only because she was too busy to tell him to fuck off. What reason would someone like him have for being kind to her? The hardest truth she’d ever learned: kindness always came at a cost. Nothing good had ever been given to her without consequence.

As she ran through a list of his potential ulterior motives, he began rubbing her back gently, and it felt good, and she hated him. 

This was the worst night of her life, she decided. Worse even than the night she’d woken up to find herself on the train to the Capitol, zooming away from home knowing she would never be able to go back. She’d started crying when she realized what had happened: her father had been so nice to her all day, had brewed the special sun tea her mother used to make. But, knowing Annie would fall into one of her fits at the prospect of leaving home, he slipped sleep syrup into it, and when she was out, they left.

She never forgave him for that, or all the things that came after. In turn, he never forgave her for being a soft girl in a hard world. As she wept on the train, loudly enough to catch the attention of other passengers, he grabbed her face and hissed at her to be quiet. “Too sensitive,” he said, “like your mother,” as if it were an insult.

With her head still on the toilet, she flushed, and refused to acknowledge what she was sure was a smug smile radiating off of Finnick Odair’s annoying face. He was still rubbing her back in circles. At least he had the decency to remain silent. 

“I need a minute,” she said.

She expected him to say something snarky, but he only paused briefly, tucked her hair behind her ear, and left.

* * *

Curled up on the bathroom floor, she managed to doze, and dreamed fitfully of the fisherman’s boy, who was waiting for her on the beach, all roped muscle and freckled skin, allergic — like most District 4 boys were — to wearing t-shirts. He bent over, the sea lapping at his forever-bare feet, looking for piddocks which he liked to collect for her. He said they looked like wings, but he could only ever find one at a time, and mostly they were broken. Some day, he said, he would find a matched, whole set and she would put them on and fly away. She never pointed out they were far too small, and their proper name was pholadidae, a bivalve mollusk that lacked, for many reasons, the aerodynamic integrity to fly. But she recognized and appreciated his whimsy, and thought that perhaps it was not always best to stay so firmly on the ground. Maybe it would be good for her, to believe that if she continued searching, held out hope for just the right pair of wings, she could fly.

She went to join him, and he looked up and smiled at her. He had Finnick Odair’s face now, much younger, happier, free of makeup. But a heavy hand, her father’s, grabbed her arm and dragged her back into the restaurant. He knelt in front of her, blue eyes raging, gripping her arms hard enough to hurt. Her fingertips went numb. Flecks of spittle landed on her face. She knew not to fight or flinch or writhe away. She certainly knew not to cry. He was speaking quietly so as not to bother the guests, which she always found more frightening than yelling. It was one thing to lose your temper and raise your voice. It was another to keep your temper in check, quietly threaten and impose, smiling even, so those around you could think you were having a calm, reasonable discussion. She couldn’t make out what he was saying. It didn’t matter if she couldn’t cover her ears; when she was scared enough, they stopped working anyway.

He was asking her a question. Her breath came in short hiccups. He asked her another question. She was frozen. She couldn’t feel or think anything. Like a squid, if she stayed perfectly still, she might meld with her surroundings and become invisible, and nothing would hurt her. In school she had learned about fight or flight, but she knew she was capable of neither. She was not ashamed of freezing, though — it was the quietest beast who could often survive the longest.

The first slap wasn’t hard. It didn’t even hurt. What had she done to make him so angry? She couldn’t remember. She couldn’t remember anything. He meant to unfreeze her, to make her answer, but it only removed her from her own body, a body which did not belong to her, had never belonged to her. She was the property of her father; her father, the property of the Capitol. As they all were. As they all would always be. 

* * *

After she splashed cold water on her face and brushed her teeth, she wandered out into the living room expecting Finnick to be gone. She wasn’t sure how long she had been out, but it had to be long enough to convince him waiting around was a waste of time. 

But there he was, lying on her tattered old couch, arms across his chest with his eyes closed, though he definitely wasn’t sleeping. She threw his legs off and sat beside him. Instead of sitting up, he put his legs back across her lap. A dull ache beat against her forehead, and that was the reason she gave herself for not pushing him off of her.

“How are you feeling, Annie Cresta?” He had taken off his shoes and was now wiggling his toes. In the Capitol, people kept their shoes on inside, which she found abhorrent. It was good to know, sort of, that some things about District 4 boys didn’t change, no matter how much the Capitol interfered.

She wouldn’t look at him, not at his pretty gold face or his lean body or his tedious beauty. “Like I just got run over by a fleet of garbage trucks, Finnick Odair.” Which was probably how she looked, too.

“Nice apartment.”

“Shut up.”

It was a terrible apartment. The only good thing about it, and thus the reason she had it, was the kitchen, which had white marble countertops, a wood-block island, and sleek new appliances. It was attached to the tiny living room and even tinier dining room, and the bedroom was about the same size as the closet, which told you everything you needed to know about Capitol architecture. Her floor was always littered with clothing, her furniture was second-hand, and she had a terrible habit of letting her hot chocolate mugs pile up into precarious, sticky towers.

After Annie had turned sixteen and was forcibly removed from the Academy, her father decided he was done being her father, and so living with him became a tenuous roommate situation. Instead of demanding her to clean up after herself, he expected her to do it of her own free will. She didn’t, and that led to more shouting, and shouting often led to hitting. He thought she might be better off on her own, or at least, if she wasn’t, it would no longer be his business. So instead of sharing one two-bedroom apartment, he rented two one-bedroom apartments. Hers was directly over his. She didn’t know which monitoring she hated more: surveillance vans crawling past her house a hundred times a day, or her father hearing and ridiculing her every step. She was sure that tonight, if he were awake, he had heard her returning home, puking, and speaking with a guest in her apartment. It had been a long time since he had hit her, and nowadays he treated her like a colleague, respectfully but at a significant distance. She didn’t know how he’d react to her having a man over at two in the morning.

“You live alone?” Finnick asked.

“No, my husband will be along any minute.”

“Oh good. Will he be joining us?”

Finally she looked at him, but immediately regretted it. Thin, straight nose; high cheekbones; impossibly deep dimples; every hair in place. Perfect, she thought. He was utterly perfect. 

“I don’t like you,” she said.

He removed his legs from her lap and moved closer. “That’s a shame, because I like you very much.”

“Why won’t you just leave?”

His hand fell to her thigh. His other brushed her hair away from her neck. “And let people think I’m a one-minute man? Never.”

“You’ve been here longer than that.”

“I’m not a one-hour man, either.” He placed a light kiss behind her ear. A shiver ran down her body. Her face and neck grew hot. His hand moved up her thigh, and he pressed kisses down her throat. To her horror, he began unbuttoning her jacket. To her worse horror, she let him. Of course it felt good, it all felt good, no one had ever touched her this intimately before, but she also felt like she was sinking to some unknown depth. She returned to the image of squids, buried among rocks and coral, safe in their stillness. 

Why didn’t she want this? She was attracted to him, desperate to be touched by him, enjoying what he was doing. But Finnick Odair was rich, famous, and widely desired. There was no reality in which someone like him would ever want someone like her. Something was wrong here, and she wouldn’t let herself be fooled. 

From somewhere far away she heard her own voice say, quietly, “I would rather not be doing this.”

When he pulled away, she flinched, protecting her head with her arms, bracing herself to be hit or screamed at, or perhaps he would just do whatever he was going to do anyway, and it didn’t matter whether or not she wanted it. 

Nothing happened. Hesitantly she unfurled herself. He had moved to the other end of the couch, facing her, watching her, looking stricken and confused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I thought you were playing coy.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know coy, only brutal honesty.” He had finally stopped smiling, but she no longer felt victorious about it. “Maybe you should go home.”

He looked down at his hands which were clasped between his knees. His shoulders were rounded and he looked much smaller than he had a moment ago. “Mea paid me for the whole night.”

The baffling pieces all settled into place. Of course Finnick Odair wasn’t really interested in her. Of course Mea — “Paid you for what?”

“To have sex with you.”

“Why?”

A realization seemed to cross his face, followed by resignation, like he just figured out she didn’t know something he thought she knew. “It’s my job, Annie. I’m not a flirt, I’m a whore.”

In the Capitol, jobs were not just jobs, but callings. Every occupation not held by an Avox had a certain glamor, an element of respect that came from a sought-after skill and minor fame because of it. If you grew up in the Capitol, you grew up seeking your higher purpose, and therefore function, in society. Sex work was as highly regarded as any other profession. Unlike in the Districts, the most depraved pornography was viewed as high art. Sex was not a private, intimate act, but — like everything else — a means of self-expression. The citizens of the Capitol liked to put their most prurient and inward selves on display, to be accepted, lauded, and adored. The irony, of course, was that everyone was so busy seeking praise that there was no one to dole it out, and all that was left was ridicule and resentment.

Finnick did not speak the word “whore” as if he were proud of his profession. She had thought he enjoyed the high, fast life of the Capitol, and that was why he had never gone home to his fancy beach house on Victor’s Wharf. 

“I told you I wasn’t going to fuck you,” Annie said.

“That’s part of the game. Pretending not to be interested, too good for me. Then it’s my job to chase. To convince.” Finnick pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. With his bare feet crossed over one another and gaudy makeup, he looked like a boy at a costume party who decided he wasn’t having very much fun. “Mea doesn’t know you very well, does she? Surprise party, me. Neither of which you wanted.”

She finally understood the conversation she’d overheard. Finnick had probably been trying to tell Mea that Annie was too drunk and didn’t want him. And Mea probably convinced him that Annie was just play-acting to see how desperate she could make him. “She doesn’t, no.”

“Does anyone?”

“My father knows me. He just doesn’t like me.”

“I know you.” 

He had said it was his job to convince, and he nearly had. She could see now how he was so good at what he did. The role he played was not a mask but the opposite. He was vulnerable, unabashed, earnest, like all great actors. The smile and persona may have been fake, but the rest of him was intensely real. More real than anything else in the Capitol. More real than her memories of the fisherman’s boy. She could almost believe the two of them were one and the same, but District 4 was a big place, and if the boy were still alive, he surely would have reached out to her. He would have tried to save her.

But Finnick Odair was still only a stranger, albeit one with a kind face, who reminded her of someone she once knew. “Go home, Finnick.” She got up to go to her bedroom. He could let himself out.

“Annie, wait,” he said, and caught her by the arm. “I don’t have a home.”

“Where do you sleep?”

“With my patrons.”

“Every night?”

He looked away as if ashamed. What he was saying didn’t seem possible, that someone could spend their life hopping from event to event, day after day, and bed to bed, night after night. 

“Fine,” she said. “You can sleep on the couch, but I expect you gone by morning.”

“Isn’t there anything you want? Anything I can do for you?”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“What happened to brutal honesty?”

“I won’t have sex with someone who doesn’t want to have sex with me.”

“I’m not talking about sex.”

“Then what are you saying?”

“I’m saying, you’re still on District Four time. You probably don’t sleep well. You’re surrounded by people who don’t care about you. You’re homesick. You work yourself into the ground. You don’t know how to have fun, and you’re not happy. You don’t think you deserve to be happy.” His hand slid down her arm and held hers. It was warm and rough the way no one else’s here seemed to be; his were hands carved from labor invisible to the Capitol. “I told you, Annie, I know you. And I know you're starving for something.”

She should have been offended, angry even — that was what a character on television would do, wasn’t it? — but she wasn’t. This man whom everyone looked at was now looking at her. Seeing her. And all she could feel was a profound satisfaction, like aloe on a sunburn. 

“Let me take you to bed,” he said. “Let me hold you.”

“Is that what you want?”

She didn’t know how she expected him to answer, maybe that what he wanted didn’t matter, or he'd brush the question off. Instead he said, “You have no idea how much.”

It was stupid, perilous even, to believe him. She knew objectively a man like him could never want someone as broken as her. She wasn’t even righteously broken. She had everything in the world, a better life than anyone in District 4 could dream of — a good job, plenty of money, tons of friends. And yet she spent an inordinate amount of time one step to the left of reality, carefully guiding her life away from the pits and shadows that sent her spiraling. She lived in fear, always, of the heavy hand that had pulled her away from the fisherman’s boy.

She was trembling, and she was sure he could feel it, the tremor of want down her body. Like her, he was a master of double-meaning. He just wanted a firm mattress to sleep on, that was all, not a tattered old couch that would give him a back ache in the morning. He probably needed his back to be in good shape. For his patrons.

Yet this pounding feeling in her chest wasn’t fake. Her eyes flicking down to his pretty mouth wasn’t fake. Imagining what he tasted like, what would have happened if she had let him continue earlier, what kind of pleasure he could offer her — even if everything he said was a lie, her body responded as if it were scripture, truths beyond all logic and reason.

She led him to her room.

* * *

He wanted to sleep naked but she was firmly against it, and threw a pair of boxer shorts at him. 

“Whose are these?” he asked, tugging at the elastic. They were decorated with multi-colored bell peppers.

“Why? Jealous?” She turned away from him as she slid on an old t-shirt of her father's, which he had tried to get rid of after his surgery. He had no ties to material possessions, but she did, and she liked to take his things because she thought they were better than her things. He was always throwing stuff away, items that reminded her of home, and she was always fishing them back out. Another reason he decided she should have her own apartment — he wanted to shed District 4; she wanted to shroud herself in it.

“Depends,” he said. “Do you want me to be?”

She clicked off her lamp before he could see her face redden. “They’re mine. I prefer men’s underwear.”

She slid into bed, and felt a dip in the mattress as he crawled in behind her. His voice was much closer now, quieter: “Funny. I prefer women’s.”

She stifled her laugh in the pillow. He curled his body behind hers, an arm over her stomach, and tugged her close to his chest. Then he sighed, the long, slow exhale of someone overcome with relief. 

* * *

She awoke gasping for breath, hand clutching her throat. She couldn’t remember her dream, but she hadn’t been able to breathe. Her heart throbbed wildly, she was soaked with sweat, and shivering hard enough that her teeth chattered. The clock by her bed read a little after six in the morning. She rolled over to find Finnick Odair propped on his elbow, watching her, his eyebrows pinched together with worry.

“Are you okay?” he asked quietly, as if whispering would keep them from being overheard. If anything, it made the listeners listen more intently. 

“Just a nightmare.” Her voice felt weak and thin. “Haven’t you slept?” 

“I don’t sleep.”

“Everyone sleeps.”

She could barely make out his face in the dark, but caught his sardonic smile. “Not with the right mix of medication.”

“So you’ve just been, what, lying here?”

“Go back to sleep, Annie.” He brushed a sweaty lock of hair from her forehead. “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

She remembered the moment he had won his Games — a young boy, barely older than her, throwing a trident into the otherwise healthy body of a girl from District 2. Going over to her, placing his foot on her chest while he yanked the trident back out. The camera had been focused on his face, looking up at him from below. The emptiness there. What should have been fear or remorse replaced by the shallow blankness of survival. 

She found herself settling her head on his chest, listening to his dull, slow heartbeat in contrast to her still-racing one. Out of all the lies he’d told tonight, he had offered one single, shining truth: while she was with him, nothing else could hurt her. Finnick Odair was the most dangerous man alive.

The thought should have disturbed her. It didn’t.

* * *

The next morning, Finnick was gone, as she knew he would be. She wondered when exactly his time was up, and if he had stayed until the minute he was supposed to clock out, left as soon as she fell asleep, or if he’d lingered a while. She would never know. 

Beside her coffee pot, she found a business card, identical to the one he had given to the man whose camera she smashed. It was plain card stock with a phone number printed on the front in embossed gold lettering. Nothing else, not even a name. She snorted indignantly. The arrogance. The assumption she would call him. Then she turned the card over and saw written on the back: 

_Thank you for letting me hold you._

His tiny scrawl looked lonely and adrift, not at all the kind of writing she’d imagine from a man with such a large presence. It was ugly in a way, unbalanced, with sharp points in all directions as if to protect itself. 

At the very bottom, he had added, _P.S. Ask for what you want._

She didn’t want anything. Not from him, anyway. She wanted a sailboat and a long stretch of ocean to sail across. She wanted a functional kitchen and people to feed. She wanted to go home.

Then again, she thought as she ran her thumb across the gold numbers, he was the closest to home she would probably ever get.


	3. Chapter 3

At the market, Annie flipped through every tabloid she could find and saw nothing about her and Finnick. The gossip had been taken over by the most recent victor, Johanna Mason, who had overdosed on something and fell into a coma. It probably wouldn’t have generated as much interest if it hadn’t happened right on television, during a game show called _Guess That Thing_ in which contestants speculated the function of obscure tools from the Districts, and the victors from those Districts explained them. As she was violently demonstrating something called a “hookaroon,” Johanna collapsed. 

When Annie returned home, she ran into her father as he was leaving. She was weighed down with groceries and he stopped to help her. Every time they saw each other, she had to recalibrate her mental picture of him. Once, she had even walked right by him without recognizing him. In her mind, he was a large angry man, clean-shaven, black hair meticulously parted and combed back. Now he had a scratchy salt-and-pepper beard and stopped combing his hair back. Despite the grey, the wildness of it made him look younger. His shoulders were always hunched and his hands shoved in his pockets, like he was trying to take up as little space as possible. It hadn’t been hard to detach this man from the memories of her father; he was someone wholly different now, just the guy who signed her checks and paid her rent. A small part of her believed they might one day become business partners, or maybe friends. The rest of her knew that obligation was the only thing still tying them together, and if she were capable of supporting herself, they’d probably never speak again. 

In her darkest moments, she missed the hitting and yelling. It meant he felt something for her, even if that thing was loathing and disgust, which she far preferred to the complacent professionalism he exhibited now — this apathetic stranger in front of her, hands in pockets and eyes downcast. 

She expected him to bow out once he'd helped her drop the groceries into her apartment, but he stuck around a couple minutes while she put them away. When she closed the last cabinet and had no choice but to look at him, she saw he was holding a pink envelope. He handed it to her. It had her name on it in his big capital letters, written in thick red ink, and underlined twice.

“Happy birthday, kid.”

“Thanks, old man.”

She couldn’t bring herself to call him Dad anymore, and referring to him as William didn’t feel right either, so she settled for “old man” or sometimes “sir” when she was feeling particularly flippant. What else did you call the man who used to beat you?

When the door was shut behind him, she tore open the envelope. In a tasteful serif font, the card read, _For my daughter on her birthday_. Inside was a gift card to her favorite kitchen supply outlet, and he had written, _Lay off the booze. Can’t cook hungover. Happy 18. Love, W.C._

The phone rang. As soon as she picked up, Mea said, “So? Did Whale Dick Odair shatter your womb or what?”

* * *

Annie maintained some dignity in that it took a week to call the gold number, although the frequency with which she paced her apartment, phone in one hand, business card in the other, was somewhat pitiful. She finally realized she spent so much time thinking about things she wanted but _couldn’t_ have, she never considered things she wanted and _could_ have. And so she called.

As it rang, she went over what she wanted to say. She’d act casual at first, like a friend, and ask how he was doing. Then, she’d pretend to feel awkward (or perhaps she actually would feel awkward) until he'd finally ask if she wanted to purchase his services. And then all she would have to do is say yes. Then again, what if he didn’t even remember her?

It was not Finnick who picked up the phone. It was a nasal-sounding woman. “Offices of Finnick Odair, victor of the sixty-fifth Hunger Games. Cordia speaking. How may I assist you?”

The offices of Finnick Odair. Horrific.

“Hello?” Cordia asked.

“Yes, hi. Um, may I speak to Finnick please?”

“Mr. Odair is presently unavailable.”

“So you conduct all his business? There’s no way to speak to him directly?”

“I’m afraid not.” Her voice dripped impudence, as if it were absurd to even ask.

In a measured tone, Annie said, “I would like to schedule an appointment with him.”

“Have you received a referral?”

“No.”

“How did you get this number?”

So not just anyone could have his time; one had to be referred. “He gave me his card.”

“Personally?” She sounded incredulous. 

“Yes, personally.”

Some clicking around. Then Cordia said, “Mr. Odair has the evening of February twentieth available.”

Over a month away. Annie couldn’t wait that long. 

“Don’t you have anything earlier?”

“No,” Cordia said curtly. How many people like Annie did she have to deal with on a daily basis, who felt they were special to Finnick, entitled to his time, and resented that they had to go through the same process as everyone else?

“What about just a few hours? Not a whole evening? It could even be an afternoon.” She sounded desperate. Maybe she was.

More clicking. Then Cordia said, “He has an opening next Tuesday from six to eight.”

“I’ll take it.”

Cordia asked for more information, Annie’s full name, address, phone number, and, “How would you like Mr. Odair to be presented?”

“Pardon me?”

“How should his stylist dress him?”

“However he wants to be dressed,” she said sharply. He didn’t even get to choose his own clothes, his appearance, like a walking doll.

More clicking. Cordia began summarizing their exchange, but Annie cut in: “How much will I owe?”

“Mr. Odair’s rate is —” The number that followed was staggering. Annie sunk onto her couch. She had it, of course. She had mountains of money, but no matter how much she accumulated, she still pinched every penny, knowing there was no such thing as security for District citizens living in the Capitol.

“Miss Cresta?” Cordia said. “Will that be all?”

“Do you know his favorite meal?”

A longer pause. No typing this time. Cordia sounded like she had somehow failed. “No. I don’t know Mr. Odair’s favorite meal.”

Did anyone? Did anyone know anything about him?

Annie thanked Cordia and hung up. She would have two hours with Finnick Odair. It was enough.

* * *

The following Tuesday, Annie spent so much time cleaning her apartment and preparing dinner that just an hour before Finnick was supposed to arrive, she realized she was still wearing a tanktop and boxer shorts. She combed through her closet looking for something presentable, but everything “nice” she owned was too Capitol: gaudy bright colors, uncomfortably fitted. She only had one dress from District 4. It had been her mother’s reaping dress, blue with little yellow flowers, terribly off-season considering how cold it was outside, but her apartment was hot from all the cooking. She ran a brush through her hair, but that only made it frizzy, and threw it into a high ponytail instead. She stared at herself in the mirror, surprised by how happy she looked. She had her mother’s heart-shaped face, pointed nose, and pale wide lips; her father’s deep under-eye circles and surly disposition. For a moment she let herself believe she really was as beautiful as Finnick had said she was, but she knew it had to have been an act. Finnick Odair was a salesman in the business of lies. But at least she knew that now. At least this time, when she allowed herself to fall, she would know how hard to hit the ground.

At six on the dot, he rang the bell. She buzzed him up. Thankfully she was running a little behind on the cooking to keep her busy so she wouldn't seem so nervous. Cooking was the one thing she could do when everything else fell to shit. She’d grown up in the kitchen of the old Cresta’s in District 4, watching her parents cook and serve a steady stream of guests, a tight-knit community of hungry fishermen and merchants. She had wanted to learn to cook like them, but her father wanted her to start training for the Games like other kids her age. She remembered fear beginning to creep up on her when the Hunger Games grew from an abstraction, something unrelated to her, to a very relevant and impending aspect of her life. Soon every shadow, every loud noise, every unexpected movement sent her reeling. After her first few classes and the meltdowns thereafter, her mother pulled her out and told her father they’d just have to find another way to keep her safe. Until they could, she put a knife in Annie’s hand, not as a weapon, but a tool. Chop the carrots. Open the clams. Smash the garlic. With a knife and a task, Annie felt powerful. Fearless.

She heard the distant arrival bell of the elevator, then a soft knock on her door. Annie opened it and almost didn’t recognize him — Finnick Odair, not the overstyled Capitol model, but a regular person, a boy from District 4. He was wearing a wool peacoat and a black button-down shirt with dress pants. His hair looked as if he’d just stepped out of the shower and hadn’t bothered to put a comb through it. He had no makeup on, not even foundation. She could see every pore and blemish on his skin. No freckles, she noticed, and tried not to be disappointed. And he was holding a bouquet of daylilies, the kind her mother used to plant outside their house.

“Imagine my surprise, seeing Annie Cresta squeezed onto my agenda between golf with Claudius Templesmith and an evening with the Fraternity of Lyric Poets.”

“I can’t imagine anything worse than spending a whole night with poets.”

“Trust me when I say, neither can I.”

She located a vase and put the flowers into it, then took his coat and hung it up in her coat closet, which was stuffed with everything imaginable, except for coats. When she returned, he looked terribly amused, and said, “You cleaned for me.”

“I cleaned, just, generally speaking. For the sake of it.”

“You dressed up for me.”

Her face went red and she made her way back to the kitchen. “This is how I always dress.”

He followed her. “You’re cooking dinner for me.”

“I’m cooking dinner for myself. You just happen to be here at the time I like to eat.” She turned the stove heat down and splashed some cream into a pan. “And anyway, you’re the one who brought the flowers."

Daylilies were her favorite. Cordia had probably looked up the most prevalent flower in District 4 and bought them on his behalf. Annie was sure he gave all of his patrons flowers.

She finished creaming the corn and whisked up a quick rémoulade, then plated it all up and brought it to the dining table. She watched his face as she set it down in front of him and took her seat. He looked confused and somewhat suspicious. “Is this —”

“Crab cakes with a spicy rémoulade, creamed corn, and roasted asparagus. I know it’s not anything fancy, but your secretary didn’t know what you liked, so —”

As she spoke, he had taken a bite. His eyes fluttered shut and he made a sound that one might consider pornographic. “Amazing.”

“Really?”

“Are you kidding? Of course, really.”

He ate the way the Capitol did, with his fork in his left hand, tines pointed down, and the knife in his right, and he took small, dainty bites. 

“Oh please,” she said. “You’re hardly in polite company. Can we just eat like we do at home?”

Immediately he set his knife down, switched his fork to his other hand, and dug in. 

“That’s better,” she said, and nearly forgot to eat her own food in her eagerness to watch him eat his. She loved cooking, but nothing thrilled her more than someone enjoying what she had cooked. 

She didn’t think anything could get Finnick Odair to shut up, but good food seemed to render him speechless. When he finished his first plate, he asked, guiltily, “Is there more?”

“Asking for seconds is the highest compliment there is,” she said, and went to plate up another portion for him. This one he ate more slowly. She wondered how measured his intake really was. Just because he lived among Capitol people didn’t necessarily mean he was allowed to eat like them. He didn’t even have a home here, which probably meant other people were always choosing what and how much he ate.

“I was surprised you invited me back," he said as he poured himself another glass of wine. "Somehow I got the impression you didn’t much like me.” 

She held her glass up, and he refilled hers, too. “Don’t take it personally. I don’t like anyone. And people don’t usually like me.”

“And yet you had dozens of people at your party.”

“It’s the Capitol. They’ll go to a party no matter who it’s for.”

“Maybe,” he said, and he was smiling only with his lips, which made her think he’d taken her commentary of his smiling as criticism and thus trained his face accordingly. “Or maybe you’re far more special than you think you are.”

She snorted into her wineglass. 

“What?” he asked.

“Your lines,” she said. “Do they really work?”

“Honey, if I were using lines, you’d be begging for my cock already.”

She choked on her wine.

“See?” he said. “My patrons are rarely so modest.”

“I’m not modest,” she said. “I’m just...old fashioned.”

“Says the girl who turns bright pink at the mention of cock.”

“I didn’t invite you here to talk about — that.”

“Then why did you invite me here?”

She opened her mouth to answer him, but couldn’t, so she stood and took his plate. “Dessert first.”

In the kitchen, she gripped the oven handle and closed her eyes. Her entire body felt hot. They had a little more than an hour left. She was more turned on than she’d ever been, didn’t think she was actually capable of this feeling, like it was something porn stars made up. He hadn’t even done anything. He’d only dressed nicely, and brought her flowers, and flirted with her, and ate her food, and just mentioned the word “cock.” And here she was, ready to combust. Maybe he was right; if he turned up his charm, she’d be helpless against it.

No, she thought. Even if she was paying for his company, she wouldn’t pay for his body. She wanted him, but he didn’t want her, and maybe that was fine for other people, but she wanted her first time to be with someone who really loved her. Old fashioned. She was just old fashioned. 

When she returned, dessert plates in hand, she said, “Close your eyes.” She set the plate in front of him and took her seat again, and allowed herself to enjoy his anticipation. “Open them.”

He opened his eyes and looked down. His smile fell. Maybe he was allergic, she thought. Maybe he associated it with bad memories. Maybe —

“Saltwater taffy. You found saltwater taffy.”

“Found? No, I made it. Too much of it, actually. I was hoping you’d take some with you.”

He continued staring at it as if doubtful of its existence. She wasn’t a great candy maker, but it wasn’t like anyone else in the Capitol made it.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He looked at her, face still a mystery, and she had the strong sense this was the closest to the real Finnick she had gotten yet. “Why am I here, Annie?”

“I,” she began, twisting and untwisting the wax wrapper. “I wanted to employ your services.” She waited for him to prompt her to continue, but he didn’t. “Not sex. I thought maybe you could come over sometimes and —” She stopped. It sounded so awful. Pathetic, really. “And do what you did the other night.”

“Hold you.”

“No, the other thing.”

“What other thing?”

He was making her say it out loud. Fine. “Convincing me you were really interested in me.” 

It took her a long time to meet his gaze again, and when she did, he remained unreadable, not quite as blank as his killing face in the arena, but close. She was reminded once more that Finnick Odair was a killer in a lover’s clothing. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him despite this, or because of it.

“You were right. I’m starving for something, something just as important as food.” The taffy was growing soft in her fingers. “And that’s what you do, isn’t it? You make people believe you love them.”

“You want me to love you,” he said, as if he’d never received such a bizarre request.

“I want you to pretend to love me. And I’ll pretend to love you.”

“But no sex.”

“It has nothing to do with you,” she amended quickly. “You know you’re — desirable. But I don’t think I could handle it, doing that with someone I knew didn’t really want me. And in fact if, if I do anything you don’t want, you can tell me. You don’t have to lie about my cooking if you don’t like it, or tell me I’m beautiful just because you think I want to hear it.”

Her face was hot enough to burn. She was tempted to start crying for reasons she didn’t entirely understand. She had never put herself out there quite like this before. 

“I thought,” she continued, tongue suddenly too loose for its own good, “you could come over whenever you had room in your schedule, or we could have a standing appointment, maybe. And I’d cook you whatever you like. And we’d watch TV for a while. Or play a game or something. Whatever couples do, I guess. And then we’d go to bed together, and you could hold me again. And you would just, I mean. Act like it was real. Any other night between two people in love.”

He seemed to think on it, eyes never straying from her face. She felt scrutinized, taken apart by him. Just as she convinced herself this was a terrible idea and prepared to backtrack, his mouth spread into an easy smile and he popped the taffy into his mouth. “Will there be taffy involved?”

* * *

At the end of their two hours, Annie walked Finnick to the door. His pockets were full of taffy. She had tried to give him a handful, but he said that was enough, and then she started shoveling it into his pockets. She even slid some down the collar of his shirt, and got a piece to stick in his curls, while both of them fell into fits of laughter. He tried to dig it all back out, and she stuffed it all back in.

He had checked his calendar — an actual little black book — and told her she could have the last night of each month. She would only have to wait two more weeks to see him again. And February was a short month, so that wouldn’t be too bad. They’d be able to see each other five times before the Games began, and he would have to mentor his new tributes. There was never any telling how long the Games would take, so his schedule only extended through the end of May.

Five nights. She could have Finnick Odair for five nights. Already she knew it wouldn't be enough.

“Thank you for the lovely dinner, Annie Cresta,” he said.

“Thank you for coming over, Finnick Odair,” she replied. “Are you sure you wouldn’t like more taffy?”

He laughed. She was beginning to love making him laugh, even if he was only doing it because it was expected of him. He tapped his overflowing breast pocket and said, “I think I’m set.”

This was it. Time to say goodbye. But he only looked down at his feet and cleared his throat, as if waiting for her to do something. 

“Oh,” she said. “Oh shit. Hold on.” She ran to get her purse and pulled out the money she owed him. She had tucked it in an envelope to seem discreet. She returned and handed it to him. “It’s all there. But you can count it if you want.”

As he slid it into his inner coat pocket, she could feel the rosy glass of their evening shatter, though nothing had discernibly changed. 

“See you in two weeks,” he said, smiling his bright TV smile, which she now associated with the cold distance of their acquaintanceship.


	4. Chapter 4

Annie was an avid daydreamer already, and with Finnick in the picture, her imagination had a new star. She held so many mental conversations with him that she nearly forgot which ones were real. She liked to craft stories about him, alternate realities of what their relationship might have been. In one of them, he had been her mentor in the Games and she won, and they were able to return home to Victor’s Wharf to live in peace. In another, he hadn’t gotten reaped at all, and they met in District 4: he, a guest at the restaurant, a fisherman come in from a long day of work; her, his server. And he came back, week after week, getting to know her, flirting with her, and she playfully rebuffed his advances, until he finally worked up the courage to ask her out. They walked barefoot along the beach at sunset, and he held her hand, and kissed her. 

At work, her body moved on autopilot, and she was unafraid to dive deep into each narrative, to allow her spark of hope to rage into something hot and consuming. Inevitably, though, she’d go home, and on the cold, dark walk, look up and see his grinning face lit across giant television screens all down the road. And she would have to remind herself that to the Capitol, he was not a person, but a product. Like loving a shadow, he only held the shape of the thing she wanted.

At night she dreamed of the fisherman’s boy. It was just the two of them, and they were working on some task together, deveining shrimp or scrubbing floors. She wanted to see his face, but he was always turned away. She wanted to ask who he was, but they weren’t allowed to speak. Then someone called his name, and he walked toward the voice, and Annie started screaming. 

That was how she awoke, night after night — a scream lodged in her throat, trying desperately to remember his name.

* * *

This time, Annie placed the envelope by the door so she wouldn’t have to hand it to him and experience the shattering again. Finnick arrived right on time again. He had more daylilies for her and thick clumps of snow were nestled in his hair. He kissed her cheek, which flustered her so badly she ended up putting the flowers into the coat closet and taking his coat back to the kitchen, and she only realized her error when he said, “Feeling alright, sunshine?” to which she said, “Shut up,” and put away his coat.

Tonight he was dressed more casually, in leather pants and a fitted white t-shirt that probably cost more than her rent. The V of his shirt ran deep and offered a distracting view of his collar bones. Her own outfit had been difficult to pick out, considering she had a wardrobe of extremes. She couldn’t wear boxer shorts and an enormous t-shirt with a cartoon fish on it, nor could she wear a hot pink cocktail dress with a collar that fanned out above her head.

She’d ended up going shopping, but the only place she could find what she considered normal clothes was a costume shop that sold “District-themed attire.” She bought something for each of their scheduled appointments. Tonight she wore a tea-length skirt and a white button-up blouse from the District 11 section, and put her hair up in a red ribbon that matched the skirt. 

He leaned against the kitchen island and watched her cook. Thankfully linguine al frutti di mare was a dish with many components, and she was able to pretend he wasn’t even there. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, or speak to him, and was shaking so badly she was worried for her fingers as she thinly sliced a clove of garlic. Maybe it was easy for him to slide into his role of pseudo-boyfriend, but she couldn’t figure out how to be anything other than totally avoidant or irredeemably fractious. 

She caught him just as he was popping a piece of shrimp into his mouth, and she was so taken aback by his gall, she said, “You can’t have that. It’s for the pasta.”

“But I like them.” He picked up the whole bowl and clutched it to his chest. 

“Give that back,” she said, and went after it, but he held the bowl above her head, and she refused to jump for it, so she tickled him under the arms, and he yelped and said, “That’s not fair,” and she took the bowl back. Finnick Odair may have been a terrifying killer, but he was also ticklish, and she found this to be very valuable information.

As soon as she set it down, he crowded her against the counter, one arm on either side of her, and suddenly his face was very near hers. “I missed you so much,” he said. His eyes flicked down to her mouth. He leaned in close. 

Then he reached behind her and stole another shrimp from the bowl.

“You’re awful,” she said.

“You’re beautiful,” he replied, and tossed the shrimp into his mouth.

* * *

By the time they’d finished dinner, Annie was smiling so much her face hurt, and she was doing the thing where her cheeks nearly eclipsed her sight, which she hadn’t done since she was a child. Finnick had an arsenal of anecdotes and jokes and stories that sent her into fits of laughter, eyes watering and ribs aching, yet it never seemed as if the conversation revolved around him. He lobbed questions at her frequently enough that his interest was made clear, insightful ones that weren’t overly personal, nor were they banal — her opinions on other popular restaurants, her favorite dishes to prepare, what her job was like. Around most people, she was always either too quiet, or she talked too indulgently about her most current fixation, and she could sense those around her getting irritated, which forced her back into silence. Finnick appeared to be genuinely interested in everything she had to say, and never interrupted her or rashly changed the subject to something he cared about more. She didn’t think she’d ever felt more assured, and was beginning to think his outlandish hourly rate was in fact not even close to the actual worth of the service he provided. He even came across as shy at times, a little nervous, even. And hopeful, too, that something might be flourishing between them. Like she imagined a first date would really be.

Their antagonism wasn’t entirely absent, which she was grateful for. He teased her for the way she swirled and smelled her wine before drinking, and called her a sommelier, which she definitely wasn’t, but her going on about oxidation only worsened the impression. She just had an appreciation, that was all. In turn, she made fun of his leather pants, and the gaudy teal makeup he wore on his TV spot the other night.

“You watch me when I’m on television?” he asked.

“Of course I do. You can’t swing a dead cat over your head without hitting a screen with your face on it.”

He propped his chin on his palm. “And what do you think when you see me on television?”

“I think of the way fish flop around in a panic when you take them out of water.” She meant it to be funny, but realized it was too true and sad to be funny, and moved on before he could notice. “What do you think while you’re on television?”

“I think of you.”

She laughed. “Come on, you don’t have to sell me that hard.”

“It’s true. Every time I look into a camera, I wonder if you’re somewhere watching me.”

“We only met three weeks ago.”

He looked down and picked at the remains of his cheesecake. “So how did you come to live in the Capitol? I’ve never met anyone who ascended the ranks. So to speak.”

He didn’t know. How did he not know? Everyone knew. Then she remembered. “My parents won the Food Wars the year of your Games.”

The Food Wars were the major television event that happened between the reaping and the Games, while the tributes were traveling and training. The tributes’ interviews and events were interspersed between Food Wars segments. It was a way to keep people glued to their televisions, amping up their interest in the Games to come.

The Food Wars were far lower stakes than the Games but set up in a similar way. The “tributes” were chefs, two from each District, who volunteered and had gone through a rigorous application process. The “arena” was an enormous kitchen with stations for each team. The “mentors” were winners from previous years who, like in the Games, could send chefs certain helpful items from their District that were unavailable in the Capitol. Celebrity judges — victors, usually, but also the occasional television personality — voted on each dish, and after every challenge, chose a team to eliminate. The event was live, and ran 24/7 until the Games began. The chefs slept in brief intervals on cots at their stations, usually while their partner continued cooking. As the event dragged on, chefs grew more exhausted and sloppier in their cooking, while the challenges became increasingly bizarre and complex. One year, the penultimate challenge included rocks as an ingredient. Another year, a chef accidentally cut his thumb clean off. The winner would be able to move their family to the Capitol, where they were given all the resources necessary to open their own restaurant.

What Annie didn’t know until she had relocated was that most of the Food Wars restaurants closed after the first year, when the buzz died down and a new winner took the spotlight. It was only her father’s ruthlessness that kept their restaurant on its feet. No wonder he felt at home here. He had always been a Capitol citizen at heart. 

As a child Annie enjoyed the Wars far more than the Games. They were easier and more fun to watch, considering nobody died. But now, having lived here so long, she could see the grotesque logic in it. Food Wars before Hunger Games. Professional chefs crafting delicious food, between clips of starving children being sent to their deaths. The Food Wars said, “We have everything you want but can never have.” The Hunger Games said, “Everything you have, we can take.”

She’d been hesitant to mention Finnick’s participation in the Games, but the admission didn’t faze him. He plucked a slice of strawberry from its delicate formation. “So while I was chucking spears across the room for Gamemakers, your parents were trying to make tree bark into a meal.”

“Pretty much.”

“Were you at my reaping then?”

“Logically, I had to have been.” She hadn’t been allowed to go to the Capitol with her parents while they were competing, and knew distantly she had stayed with her friend Mathilda that week, not because she remembered it but because her parents had told her. It would have been the first year with her name in the bucket, but she was granted immunity because of the Wars, which was the only reason they had even applied. “But I don’t remember it. I don’t remember much of anything before —” She stopped, unsure if she should say it. Tonight was for fun and make-believe, not the harsh truths of her reality. His eyebrows were lifted in question, though, and she said, “Before my mother died.”

She didn’t mind talking about it, but she found when she mentioned it to anyone from the Capitol, they only offered scripted condolences and shoved alcohol and pills into her hands to keep her from feeling anything. But Finnick only said, “I’m sorry to hear that. About your mother and your memory," and she believed him.

“Memory is a funny thing even in the strongest people.”

“You don’t think you’re strong?”

“The opposite. If I’d been reaped, I would have been the first to die.”

“I’ve mentored for six years now, and I can say with certainty, I would have put all my bets on you.”

“Why?”

“You can make a meal out of anything, for one. You’re good with knives. You can read people. You’ve made peace with fear, when most tributes don’t know fear at all. And most importantly —” Suddenly he looked very serious. “I’d burn this city to the ground to keep you alive.”

* * *

In her bedroom, he unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. As he moved to the next, he asked, “Is this okay?”

She found herself nodding, maybe because their relationship was transactional, and he couldn’t do anything to upset her without the threat of losing her as a client. Maybe because she knew he didn’t actually want her, only her patronage. Maybe because he was a piece of home.

Once he had unbuttoned her blouse all the way, he traced the lacy cup of her bra with his fingertip and said, “Pretty,” though she couldn’t tell if he meant her or the bra. He knelt in front of her and unzipped her skirt, let it pool at her feet. No one had ever seen her this undressed. She wished she had turned off the light. He ran his hands up her thighs and stopped at her hips, traced her hip bones with his thumbs, and placed a kiss below her navel. 

He gazed up at her as he settled a kiss a little lower, and another lower than that, getting dangerously close to what she knew was the soaked spot of her underwear, and he lingered there a long moment, looking as if he wanted to taste her just as much as she wanted him to. She wondered if it was possible to come from intense eye contact. If so, Finnick Odair would be the one to make it happen.

He guided her onto the bed, on her belly, and told her to relax. He left for a moment, and when he came back, she felt his hands settled on her back, slick and warm with something sweet-smelling, and he dug his thumbs into the tense knots of her shoulders. 

“How’s this?” he asked, but she could only groan in response. 

By the time he was done massaging her, every muscle in her body was liquefied, down to her fingers and toes. The only part of her he didn’t touch was the part she wanted him to touch most. She couldn’t tell if that had been his intention, to make her want him more than she’d ever wanted anything, enough to consider breaking her resolve. She had to remind herself repeatedly it was all an illusion. An extremely believable illusion. 

He settled down beside her. Even her eyelids felt too heavy to open, but she managed it, and found him watching her, looking pleased with himself.

“Marry me,” she said.

He tucked her hair behind her ear. “I would love nothing more.”

She almost made a comment about his ham-fisted lines, but she felt too good, and decided to roll with it. “When?”

“After the Games," he said easily. "We’ll run away together. We’ll go home, and marry on the beach at sunrise, and spend our lives at sea.”

“Babies. I want babies.”

“A hundred babies.”

“That’s too many babies.”

“Just a handful, then.”

“A crop. And they’ll have your dumb dimples.” 

“And your beautiful eyes.”

She ran her thumb lightly over his lower lip. So soft. “And your pretty mouth.” 

“May I kiss you?”

She hesitated. “I’ve never been kissed.”

“How can someone as gorgeous and talented as you have gone this long without being kissed?”

“I am a deeply unpleasant person.”

“I find your company very pleasurable." He said "pleasurable" like it was something filthy. "And it would be an honor to be your first kiss.”

She gave the slightest nod, and closed her eyes, and he pressed his lips lightly to hers, barely a brush, but enough to silence every thought and fear in her head. He pulled away just an inch to see her reaction, and whatever he found there must have encouraged him. He threaded his fingers in her hair, and came in again, tentative and slow at first, then faster, deeper. She almost couldn’t keep up, could barely drag in a breath. Her whole life she’d spent outside of her body, fracturing herself across a dozen daydreams and half-memories, but here, now, she was a single person in a single body, living a single reality, in the present. 

He tore himself away, his forehead pressed against hers and a pained expression on his face. He was trembling. And for once, she wasn’t.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

He laughed bitterly. “I’m never going to be able to stop doing that.”

“I don’t want you to stop.”

“Good,” he said, and dove at her mouth again, this time harder, with a determination no one had ever directed at her before. 

No wonder everyone fell in love with him. This kind of attention was only a dream for most people. To have it bottled like this, held in hand — she could see someone going into debt over it, to spend just one more night with him. Finnick Odair was the property of the Capitol, and the Capitol was in love with Finnick Odair. It would be easy, she thought, to control those who were addicted to him, who would choose him over their own freedom.

Kissing Finnick Odair made her feel powerful, the way she felt the first time she’d held a knife. Perhaps Finnick was a knife. A tool. A weapon. But who was wielding him?

* * *

The next morning, he was gone and the envelope by the door was empty. She knew he had to take the money, and it was better than waking up to see him out and hand it to him, watch him fall out of love with her the moment it reached his hands. She had felt so strong with him, so loved, and now, as she picked up the empty envelope, she was reminded how weak she really was, to fall so soon and hit the ground so hard.

She was about to throw the envelope away when she saw writing on the other side.

_I meant what I said. When I look into the camera, I’ll be thinking of you._

How many times had he written this exact line? How many people met his eyes on screen and believed him to be thinking of them? 

She threw the note away. One night a month, she was allowed to pretend. But it was no longer that night, and she could no longer let herself believe his lies.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for bullying, eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide.

Despite being the shortest month, February always felt the longest and darkest. She felt as if weights were hanging off her body, dragging her down to some invisible depth. Her only reprieve was thinking of Finnick. The first week away from him, she caught his TV spots that aired while she was home. She told herself it was only a coincidence that she happened to have the television on and turned to the right channel when his face came on screen. The second week, she found herself wandering out of the restaurant kitchen after lunch rush to watch the TV by Mea’s hostess station. 

The third week, she subscribed to a newsletter sent out by his most prominent fan club, who called themselves “Dolfinns.” The Dolfinns newsletter was delivered to her door daily and included a complete list of Finnick’s appearances, both confirmed and rumored. Multiple times a day, Finnick was interviewed for his opinion on topics he had no business to have an opinion about. He hosted awards shows. He cut the ribbon at grand openings. He advertised sunglasses, makeup, teeth whitener, shaving cream. She almost couldn’t believe anyone could be so busy, but then she remembered he didn’t sleep and he had no home. Before she’d met him, he’d only been background noise in a world she had worked hard to tune out, a familiar face grinning down at her from every screen. His presence was projected all across Panem, and the message it gave was clear: This is the face of a victor. This is who you can be.

Annie began to tape his television spots that aired while she was asleep or at work. She changed her route home to see his new billboards. She went into a tailoring shop that claimed to be his favorite, where she knew he was featured on a mural in the back. She pretended to browse through suit jackets on the clearance rack while she glanced surreptitiously at his enormous smiling face, mid-jump in a shiny silver suit. The words COMFORTABLE, FABULOUS, CHIC floated in different fonts above his head. 

Every night she came home and watched the days’ recordings, looked at the full-page spreads, read the interviews. The highlight of her day was when he would look into the camera. At her. For her. Out of all the people he knew, thinking of her. As the month wore on, darker and colder and still bereft of any real connection, she couldn’t help but buy into what he had said. Just a couple moments a day, not even a full minute, when she could believe that she was loved.

* * *

For their third “date,” Annie decided to make salmon en croûte, which was one of those meals you could prep early and then pop into the oven when you were ready. She cleaned her entire apartment again. She practiced curling her hair based on a tutorial she’d found in the Dolfinns newsletter, which touted the style as one he had complimented in an interview during last year’s Games. It was a long shot that he’d remember it or that he’d even meant it, but the more she gave herself to do, the better she felt. To wear, she’d chosen a pink gingham dress from the District 12 section of the costume store.

By the time the 28th arrived, she had the day scheduled down to the minute. She was a mess of a person, yes, but when it came to food and stressful situations, particularly stressful situations involving food, she was unerringly precise. An hour before he was set to arrive, she began shaking so badly she could barely tip a wine glass to her lips without spilling. She always shook, but today it was the worst it had been in a long while, since her mother died. She cursed herself for feeding so deeply into her obsessive tendencies, getting herself so worked up over him. Then again, without her daily “wind-down” as she had come to call watching the recordings, she wasn’t sure she would have survived the month.

She was two glasses of wine in and feeling much calmer when the bell rang. She buzzed him up. Stood in front of the door. Straightened her clothes. Smoothed down her hair. He knocked. She counted to five before opening, so it wouldn’t look like she was waiting by the door. She opened it smiling.

The first thing she noticed was that he had no flowers. The second thing she noticed was that he wasn’t smiling. But she didn’t have a chance to say anything, because he surged forward and kissed the words right out of her mouth. She hated the phrase “like a drowning man” but that was the only way to describe the desperate, needing way he kissed her. The door fell shut behind him. He picked her up by the backs of her thighs and pressed her against a wall. 

The timer went off and he still didn’t let up. Finally she managed a “Finnick” between kisses, and then, “Finnick, I —” More kissing. “Croûte.”

“Croûte,” he repeated distractedly.

“It’ll burn,” she said, and finally got his attention.

“Oh,” he said, gently lowering her to her feet. “That’s a food thing, not a sex thing.”

“I don’t know any sex things.”

“I know lots of sex things. I could teach you sex things.”

She went to the kitchen and turned off the blaring timer. “How selfless of you.”

He started chewing on a basil leaf. “Some consider me a hero.”

“You forgot my flowers,” she said as she slid on an oven mitt.

“I was running late. I’ll get you double flowers next time.”

She pulled the pan out of the oven and set it on a cooling rack. “Your secretary doesn’t get them for you?”

When she glanced back at him, he was frowning. “There’s a florist a couple buildings down. I get them on my way.”

She couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or if it was just part of the act. It seemed outlandish that he would stop to pick up flowers for all his patrons. Then again, it was more outlandish to think it was something special he only did for her.

The salmon en croûte thankfully hadn’t burned. While it cooled, she opened another bottle of wine and started preparing the salad. She decided then that she was going to send a letter to the Food Wars Gamemakers with an idea for a new challenge: contestants would have to cook a meal while Finnick Odair followed them around trying to steal kisses. It would be the most difficult challenge in the history of the competition.

“Let’s skip dinner,” he said, wrapped behind her back, his mouth nuzzled at the crook of her shoulder while she was trying desperately to slice a radish. “Let’s move to the bedroom.”

“And do what?” 

“I’ll kiss you until I can’t feel my mouth anymore, and then kiss you some more. Kiss every inch of your skin.” As if to begin, he slipped her hair away from her neck and kissed behind her ear, in the spot he had found last month and apparently remembered made her shiver. Either that, or everyone shivered when kissed behind their ear.

She gave up on the radish and spun around to face him, and he wasted no time in lifting her onto the counter to pick up where they’d left off.

“However long we have,” he said against her lips, “it isn’t enough.”

 _Whose fault is that?_ she wanted to say. Surely if he really wanted her, he would find a way to fit her into his schedule. He wouldn’t make her pay for his company, he’d want to be here of his own free will. 

No, she thought, she wouldn’t go down that path. It led to resentment and self-pity. Moreover, she knew how packed his schedule actually was, and that wasn’t even accounting for all the parts of his life that happened away from an audience. He floated from appointment, to stylist, to event, to party, to next appointment. Never a day off. No time to rest. Even now, she was feeding him, yes, but she was also making him work. Making him be somebody he wasn’t, just so she would feel less lonely. 

“Why don’t you sit down?” she said. “I’ll have the food out in a minute.”

He pressed his forehead to hers. “I don’t deserve you.”

His eyes were so blue, his dimples so deep and his teeth so white. Every hair in place. Every line rehearsed. Camera-ready, every minute of every day.

* * *

“Tell me a secret,” he said. They were lying in bed in the dark just as they were last month. He had given her another massage, this one ending in a long, slow kissing session that only served to undo all the good relaxing work of his massage. A heavy pressure clung to her body, like being submerged too deeply in water. She wanted to break the surface, take a full breath. She couldn't do that until he touched her, but she refused to ask that of him.

“I don’t have any secrets,” she said. “And what secrets I do have aren’t interesting.”

He was holding her hand in his, tracing the lines of her palm as if to read them. “Then tell me a boring secret.”

She thought on it. “I was thirteen the first time I tried to kill myself.”

His eyebrows shot up. She didn’t think it was possible to take him by surprise. “First time?”

“I tried again at fourteen, twice at fifteen, once more at sixteen.” She counted them up in her head. “Five. I’ve tried to kill myself five times. That’s why I got taken out of school and put to work. It was the only thing that —” She stopped when she saw the way he was looking at her, horrified and confused. Of course he would. Every year, he mentored teenagers who fought for their lives and lost them. And he himself had been forced to take so many lives to save his own. Yet there she was, trying to die and failing at it.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have —”

He brought her palm up to her lips and kissed it. “Just because I don’t understand something doesn’t give me a right to judge it.”

“Your capacity for diplomacy continues to astound.”

“Respect and diplomacy are different things.”

One is sincere and the other performed, she thought. With Finnick, there was never telling which was which. Inwardly, he might hate her as much as she hated herself. He might be counting down the minutes until he could leave. She wouldn’t blame him. She was probably his most depressing client. The virgin who only wanted to cuddle and kiss. A waste of time.

“Tell me more,” he said.

“I don’t want to open the floodgates on you.”

“We have all night.”

So she told him about the day, just a week after her parents’ return from winning the Food Wars, she had found her mother’s body washed up on shore. Her father insisted it had been an accident, but her mother was far too capable a swimmer for that. Annie’s memory of finding the body was clear as day, but all the details surrounding it had been distorted by sleep-syrup nightmares. A doctor had once told her the heavy doses her father gave her to keep her calm may have been a major reason for her memory loss. She could only remember brief flashes of what came after: Waking up on the train to the Capitol. Taking the photo for her first Capitol ID, her face red and blotchy with tears. Her father hiring a nanny to take care of her while he opened Cresta’s. Kids at school calling her “fish sticks” and bullying her every minute of every day. Her first attempt: her knife, her wrists. Her father, home early for the first and only time, finding her, screaming at her as he waited for medics to arrive, nearly angry enough to finish the job himself. Three days in the hospital. Returning to school to even worse bullying, thrown against lockers, trash down her shirts, filthy rumors circulating. Refusing to eat. Losing pound after pound until she hoped to waste away without anyone noticing. Fainting in P.E., another trip to the hospital. A few months later, overdosing on sleep syrup, which only made her sleep four days in a row. A few months after that, dropping a hair dryer in the bathtub, but the electric was too advanced, and shut off before the dryer hit the water. And her last attempt: her father’s pills and a bottle of scotch that had survived the Dark Days, which he had been saving for a special occasion. What was more special than her death? That time, he had been angry enough to leave bruises. 

After that, she finally had his attention. He was forced to do something other than yelling or smacking her around, and met with the Academy to take her out of school and pursue “vocational training.” The board agreed in large part, she assumed, because they weren’t interested in giving a District girl an advanced education anyway. When Annie returned once more from the hospital, her father began training her as a line chef, then a sous-chef, and now she was head chef while he maintained the title of executive chef. Once she was fully trained, they split their schedules: he worked three lunches and four dinners a week; she worked four lunches and three dinners. They rarely saw each other anymore, except on Wednesdays when she was clocking out after lunch rush and he was clocking in for dinner. 

Like her relationship with Finnick, she never knew where she truly stood with her father. Every day she had a different theory. She reminded him too much of her mother, so he pushed her away. He didn’t like the person she grew into, so he pushed her away. She was just too much — too much trouble, too burdensome, too sad, too angry, too sensitive — so he pushed her away.

“This month was hard,” she said. “I had a lot of just, thoughts, you know? I can’t help them. I’ll be doing something simple, like trimming my fingernails, and all of a sudden I think of what it would be like to stab myself in the throat. Or I’ll be waving down a taxi, and imagine jumping into traffic. It’s like being doused with ice water. Everything’s normal and then, bam, I’m dying.” She rolled her head over to look at him. “What about you? Do you ever, you know.”

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. “Nope. Happy as a clam.”

“I don’t think that’s true. Namely because clams lack the neurological complexity to be happy. Or sad, for that matter.”

“So do I.”

She shoved at his shoulder. “Stop it.”

“I promise, I’m fine. All fine all the time.”

They lived in a world shattered. They sacrificed their children for sport. They starved the poor and beat the weak. They were two people who gave up their integrity to lead lives of privilege. Nothing was fine. Nothing would ever be fine.

“Plus,” he said, tucking her hair behind her ear, which was beginning to annoy her simply because of her certainty that he had done it to every lonely person in the Capitol, “I’ve got you now. There’s no reason to be sad.”

The Finnick of her mind, the man she’d been dreaming about in their weeks apart, would never say such a thing, never boil their togetherness down to a cure-all for incurable ailments. Loving Finnick Odair would never fill the gap in her heart her mother had left behind. He could only gloss over her grief, give her light to look toward while she avoided all the darkness behind her. That was what the Capitol did. Theirs was a culture of spectacle, of senseless beauty, of diversion from atrocity. She hated herself for buying into it, but suddenly she hated Finnick Odair more. He was strong. He was brave. He was a leader. Yet here he was, the Capitol’s darling distraction, smiling his fake smile at his fake girlfriend, and getting paid to do it.

“You’re right,” she said, turning away from him, and he curled around her back and held her close. “There’s no reason to be sad.”

* * *

The next morning, she found another note on the envelope. She ignored it, didn’t want his standard lines, the words he gave to anyone who could afford them. After a long, hard day at work, however, with no new recordings to help her wind down, she’d grown desperate. She read the note.

_I’m sorry I can’t give you more. I promise, things are not what they seem._

She read it again and again, eyes unable to stray from the tiny, chaotic writing. It wasn’t romantic at all. It didn’t sound like a line, and if it were, to what end? Was this the real Finnick Odair, the man hiding beneath the designer clothes and sleazy smiles? Or was this another move in a far more intricate game whose rules she couldn’t decipher? 

Was she a piece, or was she the prize?


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for questionably consensual voyeurism, mentions of forced underage prostitution, canon-typical violence, and suicidal ideation.

Annie’s obsession with Finnick Odair worsened through March. What had only been just a month before a means of comfort and self-preservation became detective work.  _ Things are not what they seem. _ Then what were they? Her imagination fixated on the gamut of possibilities, and whereas before she drew narratives of their romance, they eventually became stories of Finnick’s secret life. On one side of the spectrum, Finnick only meant that he didn’t like his job very much and had dreams beyond the sexual and emotional satisfaction of his patrons. On the other side, he was a rebel spy working to take down the Capitol from the inside. Sometimes, that seemed unlikely. Others, it was the only possible explanation.

This was how she justified her purchase of a communipad, on which she could receive live Dolfinns updates instead of waiting for the paper version each morning. For a single flat fee, she could peruse the meticulous archive of all of Finnick’s appearances. She’d always avoided purchasing a communipad, knowing it would probably take over her life, as it had for many others she knew with similarly obsessive dispositions. Communipads were difficult to find. They used to be sold commercially until about twenty years ago when President Snow learned that District 3, who had invented and manufactured them, was shipping them to other Districts, who were then using them to communicate with each other and organize a coup. Snow restricted communipads for government use only, although a great many of them remained in circulation. In the Capitol, they were used to share surveillance data and pornography. Punishment for owning one, assuming it had not been used to attempt to overthrow the government, was only a minor fee.

As she feared, she found herself for days on end curled up on her couch, communipad propped on her knees, watching the Dolfinns feed fill up her screen. The paper newsletter had been somewhat readable, but on the communipad, updates happened so rapidly that they used some kind of shorthand Annie could barely decipher, involving an entire dictionary of acronyms and the complicated titling conventions of their archive. “PSF” followed by a future date and time meant someone was in the process of securing Potential Surveillance Footage and would be posting it soon. “CV” was the most prevalent acronym, and meant Candid Video, usually a short clip someone had taken of Finnick through the window of a restaurant or walking down the street. Sometimes it was followed by an X, and the responding messages would blow up quickly. She figured out it meant the footage was explicit in nature. As curious as she was, she avoided those videos. “OV” was then Official Video, and referred to the TV spots that Annie recorded daily. Dolfinns who were able to provide the juiciest candid footage — either by buying it from Peacekeepers or following Finnick around and taking it themselves — gained a certain notoriety in the community, and were lauded for their persistence and dedication. There was minimal in-fighting, and for the most part they were all kind and encouraging to one another. But not a single one of them seemed to be aware that Finnick Odair was a human being.

Inevitably, Annie found herself watching the sixty-fifth Hunger Games. The version available publicly was only the two-hour highlight reel they showed at the end of the Games, but the Dolfinns had all of the footage, which many of them used to clip together into short videos set to sad or inspiring music. For those unable to dedicate their lives to following Finnick around, this was another way to earn community fame. 

First, Annie pulled up Finnick’s reaping. She thought it might jar her own memory, but it only scattered her perception further — she didn’t know if it was an actual moment she lived, or only something she saw later on television. Reapings and other community events were held on the seawall, which she did remember, but seeing it through the lens of a camera nullified the memory, like it was only a replication of the real thing, a backdrop to a television show. 

Their delegate was a man named Solomon who had a thin black mustache and wore a glittering blue suit. He considered himself a comedian, and after a grueling five-minute stand-up set during which not a single person laughed, he plucked the female tribute’s name out of the bucket. “Claudia Europa,” he said, needlessly trilling the R. A chubby seventeen-year-old girl shuffled onto the stage. Her chin wobbled but she didn’t cry. Solomon made a tasteless joke about how at least she probably wouldn’t starve to death, and moved on to the boy’s bucket.

“Finnick Odair,” he said. 

Finnick stepped out of the crowd. Off-camera, a girl screamed. She continued screaming as he made his way up the steps. On stage, he glanced to his left, the direction of the wailing, and gave a small nod. The girl didn’t stop, but her scream was muffled as if someone had clapped a hand over her mouth. Finnick was only a little shorter than he was now, thinner, and looked far older than his fourteen years. His hair was a dark mess of curls, wild in the strong sea wind. His skin was tanned from days under the summer sun. And his face was covered in freckles. 

Already he had donned a persona, that of confidence and ease, and even managed a prideful smile — teeth large and surprisingly crooked — as if honored to be chosen. His tie was loose, top button undone, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Finnick Odair was handsome and cavalier, unruffled, fearless. His youth and District made him an underdog; his grace, a star. From the very beginning, his plan had been clear: Defy expectations. Command the spotlight. Become the hero.

She paused the video on a closeup of his face. He was the fisherman’s boy, but he wasn’t. He was Finnick Odair, but he wasn’t. If they were in fact the same person, one had transformed into the other, and this tribute stood poised between the two. Something told her it was only wishful thinking, willful thinking, that the boy she had loved back home was the man she knew in the Capitol. But if that were true, surely he would have said something by now. He would have corrected her, offered to run away with her. The likelihood that Finnick Odair was the fisherman’s boy was the same likelihood that he was a rebel spy — a compelling thought, an interesting story, but nothing more.

Being fourteen, Finnick was dismissed quickly as a serious contender, but his charm earned him increasing amounts of screen time. Caesar Flickerman was a master of the three-minute interview, but Finnick bowled him over completely with a mix of swagger, flirtation, and cunning which rendered Caesar a stuttering, blushing mess. When it came time for the scoring, Finnick pulled a perfect twelve, only the third in history. After that, the Hunger Games were no longer about District tributes fighting to the death. They were about Finnick Odair ascending from obscurity into something the Capitol wanted, needed, to protect. Not twenty-four teenagers against each other, but twenty-three against one.

The Careers in Districts 1 and 2 didn't ally with him, thinking that the four of them together could take him on. They were wrong. Finnick rose into the arena looking just as casual and disaffected as he had at his reaping. He gave off the impression that no matter where he was, he was too good to be there. The arena that year was tropical: vines hanging from every tree, wide bodies of saltwater, bright sunlight that fell into beautiful sunsets. When the bell sounded, Finnick ran away from the cornucopia. Within minutes, his first sponsor gift arrived: a trident. The single most expensive sponsor gift of all time, before or since. What had he done — what had he been willing to do, or what had been done to him — to receive such a gift? 

Only nine tributes were killed in the initial bloodbath. Of the remaining fifteen, Finnick single-handedly killed twelve. His strategy was fast, effective, and methodical. He wove nets and set traps. He captured each tribute and speared them with his trident, one after the next. He drank no water. He ate no food. He didn’t sleep. By the third day, he was badly dehydrated and veering toward collapse. He would have died were it not for a sudden showering of sponsor gifts in his final moments. By then, there were only two tributes left: him and the girl from District 2, whose primary skill had been close combat and who wielded a broadsword. They hunted each other down. Not a single Gamemaker interfered; no natural disasters, no mutts. Strengthened by his sponsor gifts, Finnick waited by the cornucopia. The final battle was bloody, Finnick’s arm and stomach cut open. He disarmed her finally, threw her off balance. Then the killing blow, the shot of him pulling the trident out of her chest. His bloody face. His empty eyes. The last cannon.

Most years, when a tribute becomes a victor, they shout, sob, or collapse. Finnick only wiped his weapon off on his pants and climbed atop the cornucopia. There he sat peacefully, trident across his lap, waiting for the Capitol to claim its victor. 

The Capitol’s golden child was born. In the final moments of the video, Finnick was shown laughing through interviews, flirting with everything that moved, dancing at clubs. He offered the Capitol exactly what they wanted in the Games: a sad story with a happy ending. A worthy prince crowned king.

Perhaps someone else would have watched his Games and decided that it was his persistence, daring, and tenacity that had led to his victory. But what Annie saw in him was something far rarer: he paid attention. He never saw what he wanted to see; he only saw what was. He observed and he adapted. His opponents were not his fellow tributes, but his sponsors, the Gamemakers, the Capitol itself. It had never been his intention to win, but to manipulate the board to his liking. 

Seeing Finnick’s true colors — that he was capable not just of harrowing deeds, but of doing them remorselessly — should have changed her perception of him. Made her afraid of him. Doubt him. But as she clicked off her communipad for the first time in three days, she felt only a sense of certainty: she did not know the real Finnick Odair, but she was in love with him.

* * *

As March wore on, Annie’s grip on reality grew more tenuous. She could hardly hold onto a single moment unless it had something to do with Finnick: Mea dragging her out to clubs, where it seemed like every man emulated his hair and fashion; catching glimpses of his face on the screens as she hurried back and forth from work; propping her communipad on the counter to watch the never-ending Dolfinns feed while she cooked.

Every inhale felt like breathing through mud. She was drowning more slowly than she could perceive. Even the suicidal impulses disappeared, which should have been a relief, but their absence only indicated something far more insidious; the sharp nature of those thoughts smoothed out into long-form daydreams. Messages marching through her head one after the next: Finnick Odair will never love you. No one will ever love you. You are not worth love. 

These thoughts never made her sad. They seemed only like a logical progression reaching a natural conclusion. She’d had enough therapy to know, though, that she was on her last line of defense, and became desperate enough to go downstairs and knock on her father’s door. She could hear the television, but he didn’t answer. She knocked again. Nothing. There was a chance he wasn’t in, had left his TV on because his TV was always on. But there was also the possibility he just didn’t want anything to do with her.

When she went back upstairs, she was overcome with such an intense need to die that she did the only thing left for her to do: she turned on her communipad, navigated to the Dolfinns archive, and for the second time, watched Finnick Odair slaughter a dozen children.

* * *

As promised, when Finnick arrived, he had a comically large bouquet. The moment she saw him, the heaviness of the month lifted away, and she jumped into his arms. He managed to get both of them inside, door shut, flowers on the counter, and walked her over to the couch where he laid her down and pulled off his coat, all while continuing to kiss her. Between kisses, he asked, “How have —” Kiss. “— you been?” 

She made a neutral-sounding noise. There would be time to talk later. She could feel him smile against her lips. “Not an answer.”

She could no longer remember anything about the month, or even her life prior to this moment. Everything was Finnick. The universe had narrowed down to his mouth against hers.

Finally he pulled away. She tried to chase after him, but he stopped her with a hand to her shoulder. She frowned. 

“How are you, really?” He looked like he cared. Like he was concerned. When was the last time anyone had been concerned for her? Never. Not without screaming at her, anyway.

“I figured something out this month,” she found herself saying.

The flicker again, his eyes widening almost imperceptibly with something akin to fear. But what could Finnick Odair possibly be afraid of? “Oh?”

“You probably hear this all the time,” she began, and it felt like watching a car accident happening right in front of you, a witness to something you’re powerless to stop. “But I think I’m in love with you.”

A slow smile spread across his face, unreadable. “I don’t hear it all the time,” he said smoothly, graciously. Distantly. She braced herself for a flippant remark to ease the tension, or maybe the opposite, something melodramatic and heavy-handed. But he only pressed a light kiss to her lips and said, “I’ve never heard it from someone who meant it.”

* * *

“And suddenly,” Finnick said, gesturing with his fork which had a scallop on it, “there were three guys with cameras flashing in my face, and I’m standing there, naked, covered in glitter and holding a whip.”

“What did you do?” Annie asked. 

“What else could I do? I kept going.”

Annie was sure this moment existed somewhere in the Dolfinns archive, but it was likely in the CVX section which she had not — and would not — venture into. She didn’t let on that she’d watched his Games and that keeping up with his most obsessive fan club was now more or less her full-time occupation. 

Something felt off about their conversation, and she couldn’t tell if it was her fault or his. He seemed nervous, almost. He was fidgeting and his attention seemed to be everywhere at once, as if looking for something, or thinking someone might pop out of the shadows and stab him. She wanted to ask if something was wrong, but he would either lie or tell her a truth she didn’t want to hear. So she did what the night was meant for, and pretended everything was fine.

Finnick helped her clean up after dinner and fell strangely silent. As she washed off each dish and handed it to him to rinse and place on the rack, she let herself believe this was just a normal night in a normal relationship, and not the only night a month she was living for, with a man who probably didn’t think about her at all.

When she had passed him the last dish and he put it away, he said, “We shouldn’t go to the bedroom.”

Her heart nearly stopped. “Okay.”

“It’s just.” He focused on drying his hands and folding the hand towel into a perfect square. “If we start, I won’t be able to stop.” A laugh bubbled out of her throat, and he said, “What’s funny?”

“Do people really fall for that? ‘I won’t be able to stop,’” she said dramatically. 

“I’m serious, Annie. You have no idea how much — I can’t keep my hands off you.”

“You know I don’t believe that.”

“I know. And I know I’ll never convince you, but it’s true. Maybe the truest thing I’ve ever said.”

On the topic of truth, she wanted to ask him about the note, but outside she could hear the roar of engines up and down the street, potentially of unmarked vans full of Peacekeepers listening in. She reached up and hugged him. He wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly against him. 

“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me,” she said quietly, “and I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through.”

She let go of him and was surprised to find his eyes were glassier than they were a moment before, and his mouth was open as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t shape the words. Then his gaze flicked to the envelope on the counter.

“Is something wrong?” she asked.

He sniffed, looked away, hung the hand towel on the oven handle. “I’m fine.”

“All fine all the time?”

He smiled. “All fine all the time.”

* * *

They ended up on the couch. She was straddling his lap while he kept one hand possessively on the back of her neck, the other grabbing her ass beneath her skirt. They were both still fully clothed. As they kissed, she ground down on his erection, something she’d been afraid to do before, but now couldn’t seem to stop herself.

Soon she was so caught up in the pleasure of it, she gave up on kissing him, mouth open against his as he directed her body. She was making high, desperate sounds, and her muscles began to tense. His whispered praise and assurance only amplified the feeling, and for a moment it all seemed so real. Finnick Odair loved her. She loved Finnick Odair. It was simple. It was perfect.

She came with a cry lodged in her throat, and had barely come down when Finnick lifted her up and flipped her on her back. He continued thrusting against her, tiny shocks of pleasure rippling up her body, and as impossible as it seemed, she was certain she was going to come again. She’d never intended to go this far with him, to use his body in this way, the way everyone else did. But she had never felt so wanted, and had never wanted so much. 

“Annie,” he said against her throat. She gave him credit for getting her name right. He began grinding harder and faster, and she came a second time, not as hard as the first but this one much longer, and she found herself clapping a hand over her mouth to keep from crying out, her head tilted back as wave after wave of pleasure crashed over her.

Then Finnick abruptly stilled, and a groan cracked from his lips, and he breathed out a low, “Fuck.”

“Did you,” she began. He nodded. Sat back. Ran a hand through his hair. She wanted to laugh. Not at him, of course, but in joy and a strange sense of victory. She’d made the great Finnick Odair come in his pants. 

“I swear to you,” he said unabashedly, “that has never happened before.”

* * *

As he showered, she wondered if that had been planned, to “prove” how much he wanted her. Then again, why would he bother to go to such lengths to prove anything? The only conclusion she could come to was that he had a stake in keeping her as a very happy patron. But why? What did she have that he could possibly want or use?

The restaurant, maybe. Her father, one of the most popular chefs in the Capitol. Maybe this was all a giant ploy to get her father to become a sponsor in the next Games. To shower District 4’s future tributes with gifts that would keep them alive. 

That had to be it. There was no other reason he would go to such lengths to make her believe he cared for her. If he really loved her, he would have whisked her back home with him, so they could leave in peace. There was no way Finnick was truly attracted to her, or had feelings for her. He had been number one on the list of Panem’s Hottest Bachelors four years running. He could have anyone he wanted. 

_ I promise, things are not what they seem. _ It all made sense. She was merely a gear in a much greater machine. Finnick didn’t want her money or even her patronage; he wanted her sponsorship. He hadn’t changed at all from his Games. He was still just a tribute, sitting atop the cornucopia, waiting patiently to meet his victory. 

* * *

Finnick came out of her shower wearing a pair of her boxer shorts, blue ones covered in goldfish, while his clothes were in the wash. She was lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, still reeling from her conclusions.

He crawled over her, a hand braced on either side of her head. Droplets of water from his hair dripped onto her. “Your shower is abnormally loud.”

“The plumbing here is awful.”

“It sounds like an angry tracker jacker hive.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“That’s a good thing.” He frowned. “What’s wrong?”

She smiled in the reassuring way she’d learned from him. “Nothing.”

“So. What next?” He crawled down her body. “Massage?” He lifted her t-shirt and kissed her belly. “Sleep?” Then he settled between her legs, his mouth teasingly close to her center. “Something else?”

“You still want me?”

He kissed her thigh. “I always want you.”

“Even when you’re not here?”

“Especially when I’m not here.” He kissed her other thigh and continued down, dragging his teeth across her skin.

“Finnick.” His mouth was hot against her, and with one word, he would have shifted her underwear to the side and tasted her. But she was far too distracted. “Have you ever been in love?”

He lifted his head and blinked at her. “I’m not sure how to answer that,” he said, and it was probably the most honest thing he’d said yet.

“Just tell me the truth.”

He climbed back up and lay beside her. Hesitantly, he said, “There was a girl. From home.”

The screaming girl at his reaping, she wondered.

“She didn’t like me,” he said, “so obviously I was obsessed with her.”

“Why didn’t she like you?”

“I was too noisy. Even when I was silent, she said I ‘existed loudly.’ She was very quiet. Focused. I loved her for her stillness.”

“What happened to her?”

He turned toward her, looked her in the eye. “She’s waiting for me to go home.”

It was hard to believe he was lying, and she could feel her heart slowly shattering. “Why don’t you?”

The traffic had fallen mostly silent, but she could hear a lone engine rumble down the road. She wondered if some Peacekeeper was clipping their conversation to sell to a Dolfinn, and tomorrow she’d read all about herself on the feed. 

Finnick seemed to snap out of his bubble of honesty, and offered a false smile. “And deal with the poverty, brown-outs, and misery? No thanks.”

“Do you really mean that?”

He had a crazed look on his face, as if asking him these questions were a kind of torture. “I love the Capitol.”

“Me too,” she lied, and scooted closer to him, her head pillowed on his chest. She brushed against his arm and found something hard beneath his skin. A square. She traced it with her thumb. “What’s this?”

“It’s from the Games. It’s a tracker.”

“They didn’t take it out?”

He laughed. “You know, I’m sure it’s just an oversight.”

A device that tracked his every movement from age fourteen onward. Never leaving the Capitol except for the reaping and Victory Tour. Paparazzi on his tail every minute of every day. Dolfinns with constant knowledge of his whereabouts. No, things were not at all what they seemed.

* * *

The next morning, the back of the empty envelope:  _ I still love your stillness. _


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for verbal abuse and forced underage prostitution.

Envelope clenched in her fist, Annie ran downstairs and pounded on her father’s door. It was still too early for him to have left for work. She could hear the television on at a low volume. He didn’t answer. She kept pounding. Across the hall, a woman in a red bath robe opened the door and scowled at her. Annie said, “Fuck off,” and the woman went back inside. 

Finally her father opened the door, bleary-eyed, and Annie shoved inside before he could lock her out. 

“Where’s the fire?” he asked. His hair was standing all on end and his voice was scratchy and low. For a moment she felt bad for waking him up, then remembered she didn’t care.

“Who was the boy I used to play with? Back home?”

He started making coffee. “You’re gonna need to be more specific. Coffee?”

“No,” she said, but noticed he put in two extra scoops anyway. “He was the fisherman’s son.”

“Knew a lot of fishermen.” 

“The fisherman’s son who was my friend.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “You didn’t like me to hang out with him. Something bad happened to him. Maybe he’s dead, or —”

Her father knew she had memory issues, although he hadn’t believed her until a doctor spelled it out for him during one of her hospital visits, and added that it was in large part due to a combination of trauma and being forced adult doses of sleep syrup at a young age. If he felt guilty about it, he made no indication, nor did he attempt to mend the broken memories. Sometimes she wondered if making her forget had been his intention all along, that he thought he was doing her a favor.

“If that kid is one of the things you can’t remember,” he said, “it’s for the best.”

“Why? Why did you hate him so much?”

He pulled two mugs down from a cabinet. “Bad kid. Didn’t want you around that.”

“What did he do that was so bad?”

“Stole food, gave it to bums on the beach.”

“You hated him because he _helped_ people?”

“Not just me. All the merchants did. Mayor, too. Got to be a real problem. Roped other boys in. Stole Peacekeeper boats at night. Raided stores, started fights. We had a balance in Four. He was too young to know what happened when you upset that balance. Nobody could stop him. So —” He hesitated, and looked, she thought, the slightest bit remorseful. “We stopped him.”

“What did you do?”

The coffee dripped its last drops. He poured it into two mugs and handed one to her. Then he went to the window and gestured outside. She went to look. Across the street, an advertisement ran on a loop, of Finnick Odair modeling a wristwatch.

Her father blew on the steam from his mug. “Created a monster, I guess.”

“You rigged the reaping.”

“Never in a million years thought he would win. Cockroach motherfucker.”

She felt as if all her insides had been carved out. “You sent a teenage boy to his death. For helping people.”

“Trust me when I say he was doing more harm than good.” The camera zoomed in, and Finnick’s enormous smile took up the entire billboard. “And clearly he’s made out.”

No, she wanted to say, he’s a prisoner.

“You hated me then,” her father said, “and I’m sure you hate me worse now. That’s fine. I’d rather have you alive and hate me than dead.”

She knew she was on thin ice, but she couldn’t help herself. “Are you expecting me to have sympathy for you?”

She braced herself for hot coffee thrown in her face, mug cracking across her head. Shouting about how disgusting and worthless she was. But he only said, “I don’t expect anything from you anymore.”

The envelope was crumpled and soggy in her grip. She tossed her coffee in the sink and left.

* * *

In early April, springtime began to crack through the cold, one warm day for every three cold ones. No more flurries raining down on her lonely walk to work. The sun grew brighter and hotter as each day passed. The winter weight had lifted, but a new one had taken its place: the mystery of Finnick Odair.

Every day she swung back and forth, a pendulum of explanations. On one side, she believed Finnick was truly the fisherman’s boy, and he remembered her and loved her, and for some reason hadn’t come to look for her after he’d won the Games. It all seemed somewhat logical, but when she started to poke at the flimsy fabric of reason, she found a million little holes. On the other side, he remembered her but didn’t love her, was only playing her for sponsorship. Or perhaps he was seeking revenge on her father for putting him in the Games. 

Maybe Annie was in far more danger than she realized.

It took several days to work up the courage to approach Mea at work, and when she did, Finnick was on TV, reading a storybook to an audience of children sitting around his feet. Mea was leaning against her station reading a magazine. It was between lunch and dinner rush and they had no customers. Annie played casual, watching Finnick’s expressive face and wild hand gestures as he read.

“Remember that time you bought Finnick Odair for my birthday?” Annie asked.

Mea blew a bubble with her gum. It was the kind that had a stimulant in it, and was both wildly popular and debilitatingly addictive. The bubble popped. “Uh huh,” she said, chewing roughly, and turned the page.

“How did that transaction come about?”

Mea finally looked up from her magazine. Her lipstick was black and glossy. “Why?”

After the party, Annie had told her she had fucked Finnick for eight hours and it was the best sex of her life, then thanked her profusely for both Finnick and the party, near tears with gratitude, which was the only kind of thank-you anyone in the Capitol could accept. “Just curious. I heard you can only hire him if you have a referral.”

“I did,” she said defensively, like Annie was accusing her of something. “Well, sort of. He came to the restaurant with some people. And I know it’s not my place to bother guests but I had to meet him. He was so nice about it, wasn’t annoyed or anything. I asked if he knew you, and he said he did. Then I was like, ‘She’s here, you want to talk to her?’ and he said he didn’t want to interrupt your work, but he asked how you were doing, like real concerned, and I said you were great. Then he gave me his card. And when he left, I was like, ‘He’d make a great birthday present.’ So I called the number and talked to his secretary, and she said he was too busy, but then like an hour later, he called me back, like not his secretary but him personally, and said he’d be at the party. The secretary was going to charge me an arm and a leg but he gave me a discount. So were you two friends or something?”

“No,” Annie said. “Just acquaintances. Seeing him at the party was a nice surprise.”

Mea grinned. Her opal teeth glinted under the track lights. “I’m great at surprises.”

* * *

Annie read every unauthorized Finnick Odair biography in the Dolfinns archive in hopes to gain some insight or jog her memory. None of them mentioned a childhood sweetheart. None of them mentioned stealing food to feed the poor or inciting riots. In all of them, the sections set before the Games only offered cursory information. He came from a long line of fishermen. His experience at sea gave him the strength and stamina to win the Games. He was “well known and loved” in his community. They went on to explore his life in the Capitol, all of which she was sure was a lie.

She spent days writing out every scrap of memory she had of him, but she couldn’t decipher which ones were real and which were only dreams. All of them had a glossy overcoat to them, shimmering and unreal. That was who Finnick had always been, she guessed. Even before he became a victor, he’d been too bright and good for this world, and every memory he touched shone with what could have been.

In the end, she only had one memory of which she was certain: shells on the beach. It wasn’t a single memory but a composite of many, and led her to believe their companionship had in fact lasted years. At sunrise, they scoured the beach for shells while their fathers chatted — his, delivering the day’s fish; hers, readying the restaurant for lunch. She had vague impressions, too, things that weren’t concrete, like she only found Finnick bearable when he was focused on a task, and so she was always bossing him around despite being two years younger than him. He could make her laugh until she got hiccups, and she’d have them for hours after. When he left, she waited longingly through every afternoon, barely sleeping at night, hoping she’d see him again in the morning.

By the second week of April, she was beside herself with worry for Finnick, fear for herself, and intractable rage toward the state of things at large. Finnick had to have understood so much at such a young age, things she had been shielded from by her parents, that she was probably still shielded from now.

In the Dolfinns INFO channel, she asked, _Working on new FO bio. LF anyone who knew him before/during 65. PM pls._

She either expected a flood of responses from fans who claimed to have been rooting for him from the beginning but not actually know him, or nothing at all. Instead, a few minutes later, she received a message from MamaLove65: _I was one of FO’s sponsors._

* * *

Her real name was Tindra and Annie invited her out to lunch. She was a short woman in her forties maybe, with severely cut bangs and blindingly red lipstick. Compared to most people in the Capitol, she dressed somewhat normally, which just secured the fact she was filthy rich and therefore had no need to impress anybody. What she was doing lurking on Finnick Odair’s INFO forum was anybody’s guess, but Annie’s instincts said she was looking for an opportunity to brag. 

They met at a bistro far away from Cresta’s. Tindra said she was on a “no solids diet” so she ordered a large milkshake, and Annie got a ham sandwich.

“So you’re doing another biography,” Tindra said with a hint of criticism.

“I’ve read the others out there,” Annie said, “but they all seem to gloss over his childhood, don’t you think?”

“Who cares about that? All the interesting stuff started after the reaping.”

Annie bit into her sandwich and waited. She got the strong impression this woman would not need any prompting.

“I was one of the first, you know,” Tindra said as she stirred her milkshake. Her fingertips — not just her nails, but the actual tips of her fingers — had been dyed red. “The moment he was reaped, I thought, ‘That boy is something special.’ Miss Mags and I went way back, of course.”

“Who’s Miss Mags?”

Tindra gave her a pitying look. “Victor of the eleventh Games? His mentor? You said you’d done your research.”

“Sorry, I must have forgotten,” Annie said, smiling. “Please continue.”

“So I reached out to Miss Mags and told her, look, if there’s anything I can do for this poor, gorgeous boy, just let me know. After his interview, on the back end, everything went wild. Then he got his twelve and, well, I’d never seen anything like it. Us sponsors, you know, we’re a community. A family. But dear Finnick had torn us all apart. We all wanted him.”

“Wanted him for what?”

Another “oh honey” look. “Don't you know about the host auction?” 

It took all of her willpower to keep the disgust she felt from reaching her face. "I don't, no."

“On paper? They're to host the victor after the Games. In reality, it’s to do whatever we want to them. The idea is, the winner of the auction has a vested interest in keeping their tribute alive. Before Finnick, the auction was a civil affair. A tradition. But Finnick’s got ugly and dear Coriolanus put a stop to them thereafter. He’s always been a spoil-sport.”

“What happened?”

“Until Finnick, there was an unspoken rule that a tribute had to be sixteen to go to auction. We’re not monsters. But when we found out Finnick was up for purchase, the strangest thing happened. We were all furious. He was _fourteen_. We all started bidding on him to save him from everybody else. And so the bids went up and up. I thought for sure I would win. I was willing to do anything to keep him safe, but even I was outbid.”

“Who won?”

She let out a long, weary sigh that seemed very well rehearsed. “The Meltons. A married foursome, very close with Coriolanus. Pull far too many strings in this country if you ask me. I can’t imagine what unspeakable things they did to sweet Finnick. But they paid an unholy amount to put that trident in his hands. They saved his life.”

Suddenly Annie felt too sick to finish her sandwich. “Do you know Finnick? Personally I mean.”

“Oh of course. I became a patron the day he turned sixteen.”

“And do you still…”

“Unfortunately, no,” she said resentfully. “It began interfering with my marriage.”

Annie didn't know what to say to that sort of admission. “I’m sorry to hear that?”

“Me too. I mean, it’s just a _service_. It’s not like I was in love with him or anything. Poor dear, though, he didn’t take my leaving well at all. I’m sure I broke his little heart.”

“He had feelings for you.”

“Absolutely. I’d open the door and he’d come rushing in like he couldn’t bear another moment without me.”

“Did he ever tell you that he loved you?”

“Oh, all the time. It was always, ‘I love you, Tindra. I’d die for you. Let’s run away together.’ He was such a whimsical boy. I do miss him.”

Annie slid her purse onto her shoulder. “Excuse me, I have to leave now,” she said, placed some money on the table, and left.

* * *

Annie had been called crazy most of her life, but she had never _felt_ crazy until now. She couldn’t focus at work and kept making mistakes, could barely eat. She hadn’t slept in days. Her only comfort was watching Finnick’s Games again and again. She even tried to watch one of the CVX videos, the most popular one with the highest ratings, but before Finnick and his myriad partners even undressed, she felt disgusted, overcome with guilt, and turned it off. 

Just a few days shy of the end of the month, she reached a breaking point and called the golden number. When Cordia answered, Annie said, “I need to talk to Finnick.”

“I’m afraid he’s —”

“It’s an emergency. Tell him it’s Annie. Annie Cresta. He’ll want to talk to me.”

“I understand, Miss Cresta,” Cordia said condescendingly. “But Mr. Odair is —”

“Presently unavailable, I know. I don’t care.” 

Annie heard a soft clicking sound, barely audible. It could have been anything: Cordia pressing a key, static over the phone. But suddenly Annie wondered if someone was listening in.

“Would you like me to give him a message?” Cordia asked.

Annie searched for some excuse, a believable narrative to anyone listening, but one Finnick could see through. Then it came to her, a memory as clear as if she were watching it on television: A rainy morning at dawn. The old Cresta’s. Annie standing on a stool in front of the stove, spatula in hand, slowly skating scrambled eggs across a skillet. Her parents chatting with the fishermen out back. Finnick sitting on the counter, watching her work, swinging his feet and trying so, so hard to be quiet. Her making him wait as she plated the food nicely. Him demanding to know why, it was just him, what did it matter? Her saying, _Patience makes everything better._ Him replying, _I think salt makes everything better._

Shrimp and eggs. Finnick’s favorite meal was shrimp and eggs.

“Tell him I remember his favorite meal.” 

* * *

On the last day of April, she couldn’t even wait for him to knock on the door. She buzzed him up and waited outside the elevator, watching the light above it click over to her floor. She might have been crying, or very near it. She felt fractured, cracking at the seams. It had been a long, long month.

The elevator rung and the doors parted and there he was, the boy she had once loved and the man she had come to love again. She couldn’t help but notice he looked exactly as he had rising into the arena: cavalier, disaffected. He carried a certain calm within him, or at least acted like it. She wondered if that had been her doing. 

She thought when she saw him, everything would suddenly make sense, but he was as unreadable as he always was. Had he gotten her message? Had he understood it? He remembered her, but did he still love her? Or was she just a revenge plot? 

The weather had been bright and warm for days now, and she noticed faint freckles peppered across his face.

She began to cry in earnest. He was here, finally, but he also wasn’t. He was just the body of the boy she loved, filled with answers to questions she wasn’t allowed to ask, information she wasn’t allowed to know. She loved him, but she couldn’t trust him. She only ever felt safe with him, but she knew she was in danger, too. 

“Annie,” he said, and pulled her into his arms. “What’s wrong? What happened?”

“It’s all so much bigger than me. And I’m just. I’m so scared.”

He quietly shushed her, and whispered, “Don’t.”

She nodded. She may never know the details, but she knew enough. To whoever was watching, she had to be any other patron. She would not have the answers to her questions tonight, or maybe ever. Maybe he or someone else would kill her. She wasn’t sure she cared. She only knew she needed this night with him, no matter the cost.

Inside her apartment, he shut the door and locked it. She hadn’t cleaned very much, and she wasn’t wearing one of her nice outfits. She’d meant to cook for him but hadn’t managed it, and upon seeing all of this, Finnick said, “Let me do my job tonight. Let me make you feel good.”

His face said, _Since I can’t do anything else._

She wanted to collapse. She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg him for the truth. She wanted to tell him she loved him, and she was sorry for what her father did, and somehow, she didn’t know how, she knew it was all her fault. But she only found herself nodding, and following Finnick into the bedroom.

* * *

Naked, she spread her legs while he crawled down her body. He had only undressed her, kissed her, taken his time with her, and yet she was already wound tightly around her, ready to shatter at the slightest touch. 

He settled between her legs, pressing kisses down her thigh. She promised herself she’d never let him do this, not while she was paying for it. Not without knowing for sure if he wanted it. 

She carded her fingers through his hair. “Please don’t do anything you don’t want.”

“There’s no part of you I don’t want,” he said, and slid two fingers inside her.

* * *

Finnick’s jaw seemed to be the strongest part of him. He ate her out on her back, on her hands and knees. She lost track of the number of times she came. She submitted her body to his mouth and its soft commands, his endless praise. He took no interest or notice of his own pleasure. She had to believe he wanted it, but she began to wonder if what he thought he wanted had been corrupted by an adolescence of filling other people’s fantasies.

She was loud, and she was sure her father could hear, and she didn’t care.

Eventually she insisted it was Finnick’s turn. He took his belt and wrapped it around her thighs, her legs hooked over his shoulder. She was so soaked that his cock slid between them easily, bumping against her overworked clit. Slow and steady.

“You like this?” he asked.

She nodded. She was out of words, and anyway, she liked everything he’d done to her. He leaned down, folding her in half, and kissed her. His mouth tasted like her cunt, which was hot in a whole new way, and she was finally obliterated enough to stop her destructive line of questioning. 

The only thing he hadn’t done was penetrate her, because she'd asked him not to. Now, passing over her repeatedly, feeling empty and in need of being filled, she nearly begged him to. But she wouldn’t. Not yet.

When she came, it felt as if her skeleton was trying to climb out of her body. The intensity slipped from pleasure into something wholly else. He kept going. She clenched her slick thighs around his cock and watched his face. Not so different from the arena. The singular focus. Easy confidence. Utter lack of doubt. Perhaps killing and sex offered the same sort of catharsis. 

A flood of hot wetness on her belly, over her cunt. A low cracked sigh from his lips. A final, gentle kiss.

* * *

It was past midnight. Finnick sat on the counter and knocked his heels impatiently against the cabinets. Annie scooted eggs around a pan while the shrimp fried. She buttered some toast and plated it all neatly, and they ate right there in the kitchen, under the soft glow of the stove hood lamp. For once, the city was quiet. 

* * *

She woke up to a gloomy blue outside her window, and rolled over to find Finnick propped against the headboard, her communipad in his hands. 

She bolted upright. “What are you doing?”

His eyes remained fixed on the pad. “Reading a story in which I dominate and flog the reader. Except I’m the reader, so I’m really flogging myself. If I weren’t so spent, I’d find it hot.”

She plucked the communipad from his hands.

“You know those things are illegal,” he said. 

“Are you upset with me?”

“Why would I be upset?”

He had to have seen her history. The number of times she’d watched his Games. The CVX video. Her INFO request. “Isn’t it creepy? An invasion of privacy?”

He grinned like someone was putting a microphone in his face. “I have no privacy.”

“So the candids, the sex videos, the biographies, the stalking — none of it bothers you?”

“You know I haven’t received any royalties for the dildos shaped like my dick? It’s not about the money, it’s the principle of the thing.”

“Finnick.”

“The way they make the molds for those is not a pleasant experience.”

“I’m being serious.”

He hugged his knees to his chest. “I know. I’m just sorry you had to see me that way.”

She shouldn’t admit it, but she felt like she should offer him at least one truth tonight. “It’s the only thing that gets me through each month.”

“I get it.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“I could never hate you. I could never deny you whatever comfort you find while I’m gone. Even if it’s watching me kill people.”

They were getting dangerously close to the topic they weren’t allowed to breach. “I met a woman named Tindra this month.”

He gave her a quizzical look like the name didn't ring a bell.

“Black hair. Red fingers. Insanely rich. Claimed you were in love with her,” Annie said.

“Oh, Tuna.”

“You called her Tuna? Why?”

“The exact reason you think.”

“Oh no.” 

He gave her a look that said, _Oh yes._

“Oh gross,” she said, and couldn’t help laughing, even though she felt bad about it. “So you weren’t in love with her?”

“I barely remember her. That was back when I was —” He looked down and away. “That was a different time.”

“She mentioned the auction. And the Meltons.”

“You shouldn’t have learned about that.” 

“Were they awful? Did they hurt you?”

Finnick glanced out the window, where the sun was just beginning to creep up the horizon. “I can’t answer that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Yes it is.” 

He looked at her and opened his mouth as if to say something, but stopped himself. She also wanted to say something, but he gave her a complicated look and a slight shake of his head. _Step carefully_ , the look said.

“Here.” He gestured to the communipad. “Let me show you something.”

She handed it back to him. He navigated to the reaping and fast-forwarded to Solomon calling his name. He hit Play. The girl screamed. 

Finnick paused it. Rewound it. Listened to the scream again. The scream Annie knew, but could not remember, was hers.

“She must have loved you a lot,” Annie said, trying hard not to start crying again. 

“She was the reason I won. The thought of coming home to her. I hope she knows I’m still fighting. I'm still making my way back to her.”

* * *

By morning, Finnick was gone. There was no note. The money remained in the envelope.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'll notice I added a chapter and turned this into a series. Once this fic is complete, I'll be posting a one-shot epilogue and potentially if I have time, some Finnick POV scenes. If you'd like to be notified of when they post, be sure to subscribe to the series.

Annie had a flimsy grip on reality on the best of days, but all through May, she could feel herself slipping into an even darker place than before. She’d grown paranoid, always glancing over her shoulder on her walk to work. She began carrying a knife in her purse. She made a list of van license plates that passed by her apartment and found that there were only three, and they circled the block, one passing by every few minutes. Mostly, though, she was terrified for Finnick, that simply by being in his life she had placed him in a tenuous position, and both of them were in mortal danger from powerful forces she couldn’t see or understand. She went back to barely eating, barely sleeping, watching the sixty-fifth Games on a loop, as well as Finnick’s daily TV spots, to reassure her he was alive and unharmed. 

She still held a seed of doubt, that perhaps he didn’t love her at all and had ill intentions toward her and her father. Somehow that didn’t affect her feelings for him. Her love for him was not conditional on his reciprocation. Finnick Odair could hate her, beat her down, kill her, and it wouldn’t matter. This was what her father had imparted on her — her own comfort, happiness, and safety had nothing to do with who and how she loved. She knew that about herself. She'd made peace with it.

Just a week and a half into May, she was struggling through a particularly stressful dinner rush, when Duncan ran into the kitchen, hands in the air as if he’d been shot, saying, “Table A-Five wants to see you! I’m sorry! I can’t!” and ran back out. Annie gave her sous-chef Mikelle a questioning look, and he shook his head and shrugged. Mikelle’s parents were Avoxes who had purchased their freedom, and so he didn’t talk very much. His appearance was the loudest part of him — silver hair gelled into spikes, a snake tattoo down one side of his face, five piercings across each of his eyebrows. Annie barely knew anything about him, but considered him a good friend.

Usually when guests wanted to compliment the chef, they asked for her father. The only time anyone wanted to talk to her was if they had a complaint. A5 was a prominent four-topper that usually went to regulars. By the time she realized she was walking straight toward President Snow, it was too late to run. He had already caught sight of her and stood with his hand outstretched. By some miracle, she wasn’t shaking. She was far too scared to be shaking. So scared, her face hurt from grinning and she laughed at the absurdity of it all as she shook his hand. Hopefully he took it as her being delightfully surprised.

“Miss Cresta,” Snow said, holding her hand between both of his. His skin was eerily soft and smooth like a latex glove. “It is so good to finally meet you.”

When he smiled, she could see blood smeared across his puffy lips and pooled between his teeth. The heavy aroma of roses wafted off of him and nearly choked her. 

“And you, Mr. President,” she said, and her attention shifted to the other guests at the table. 

And there was Finnick. Finnick Odair was sitting right there, looking cool and bored. His hair was coiffed and he was wearing a shiny cheetah-print suit jacket over a seafoam green shirt that clashed with his eyes. He had his arm around the shoulders of a man who was at least ten years older than him, but held the air of a frustrated toddler.

“Did you enjoy your meal?” she asked Snow, grinning maniacally, forcing down more crazed laughter.

“Oh, yes. I had the —” He glanced back at an angular woman with purple hair. Annie couldn’t tell if she was his assistant, wife, or daughter. Or perhaps some heinous combination of the three.

“Surf ‘n turf,” the woman said.

“Ah, yes, the surf and turf,” Snow echoed. “I was particularly fond of the turf. Most chefs never get it as rare as I like.”

That explained both the blood in his teeth and the request for an “extremely rare” steak about an hour back. She hadn’t thought much of it. Capitol people loved uncooked meat.

“Thank you,” Annie said. “I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

Snow gestured to Finnick, who took his cue to stand. “Have you met Finnick Odair?”

Annie opened her mouth to reply, but Finnick cut in. “We met at a party this past winter.” To Annie, he said, “It’s good to see you again, Miss Cresta.” 

His banality and disinterest were so convincing, Annie wondered if this man was just a Finnick Odair impersonator. She shook his hand. Rough, familiar. Hands that had touched her entire body. He squeezed hard enough to hurt. 

“You as well,” she said flatly, and couldn’t maintain eye contact for more than a beat. It was unbearable, to look into the face of the man she loved and see nothing there.

“I’m surprised you two didn’t know each other back in District Four,” Snow said.

Finnick laughed dismissively. “It’s a big District, Coryo. I spent most of my time on the water.”

“And I stayed on land,” Annie added. “I was actually afraid of the water for a long time.”

Another blurry memory sharpened into sudden, harsh relief: Finnick taking her hand and guiding her into the ocean. She had never been in deeper than her waist. _It’s okay_ , he said. _I won’t let anything hurt you._ Her father had tried to teach her, but he yelled whenever she got scared, and it just scared her more, and she refused to go in. But Finnick was kind, and she trusted him. When she couldn’t go any farther, he let her climb onto his back, and began swimming toward the horizon. He moved so gracefully in the water. She gripped him tightly and closed her eyes, and when they stopped, she opened them again. The shore seemed as far away as the sun. Gentle waves crashed over them, pulled them back toward the beach. The water was warm, and for the first time in her life, she felt safe.

“I thought we’d have some authentic District Four cuisine tonight,” Snow said. “I’m sure you miss it, don’t you, Finnick?”

Finnick flashed an easy smile and winked. “Oh, sure. But nothing beats the Capitol.”

Snow clapped his shoulder like a proud father.

“I better get back to the kitchen,” Annie said. “It was lovely meeting you, Mr. President. And good seeing you again, Mr. Odair. If there’s anything else I can do for either of you, please let me know.” 

At her back, she thought she heard Snow say, “Shame if all that talent went to waste.”

* * *

The next morning, the phone rang. Annie was still asleep. “Hello?”

“May I speak with Miss Annie Cresta please?”

She recognized the voice, and readied herself for the worst. “This is she.”

“This is Cordia from the offices of Finnick Odair, victor of the sixty-fifth Hunger Games. I’m calling to cancel your appointment May thirty-first.”

Annie shot upright. “Why? What happened?”

“Mr. Odair has another engagement that evening.”

“So let me reschedule.”

“I’m afraid he has no availability at present. If you’d like, I can put you on a waiting list.”

“I don’t want to be on a fucking waiting list.” Annie sounded frantic. She didn’t care. “I want to see Finnick when I’m scheduled to see him.”

“I understand, Miss Cresta, but I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“Yeah, well _fuck_ you.” Annie flung her phone across the room. It hit a wall and cracked apart.

She couldn’t live like this much longer — this terror creeping up within her, like when she was a child wondering if she would die in front of an audience of millions, for sport. And if she didn’t, it would be one of her friends, or she’d one day have children who would be reaped, or their children. Unable to feel or recognize a single moment of happiness, her fear a cancer that waded into all other things.

She had to do something.

* * *

A new club called FERN was hosting a grand opening for VIP guests. Before the new ownership, it had been called Petrichor, where it rained inside the entire time. FERN hung plants all over the place and utilized the existing plumbing to water them.

Annie wore one of her Capitol dresses, a gaudy orange thing with sleeves that dragged on the ground and a skirt that had to be taped in place lest it inch up her hips obscenely. Like the other half dozen places she had looked for Finnick, there was no guarantee he would be here, or that she’d be able to speak to him. He was always surrounded by cameras or bodyguards. 

At FERN, the bouncer asked for her name and company, and she told him the truth. Not only did he let her in, he told her he went to Cresta’s every year on his birthday.

She stood at the bar and ordered a gin and tonic. Like all clubs, the place was dark, loud, and crowded. After a half-hour of finding no sign of Finnick, she finished her drink and began looking for him. He had to be here — he never missed a club opening. The sprinklers came on and showered an unpleasant mist like the produce section of a grocery store, and Annie decided to get some fresh air. She went out onto the roof where she saw two men aggressively making out. She promptly apologized and turned back when she noticed one of them, the more aggressive of the two, was Finnick. He noticed her at the same time, and pulled away from his partner. Finnick’s hand was firmly around the other man’s throat.

“Go back inside, love,” Finnick said to the man.

“Yes, sir,” the man said, delighted presumably by both the pet name and the direct command. He was in his thirties maybe, with a stumpy nose like a pig and fogged-up glasses. Red lines wrung his neck in the shape of Finnick’s fingers.

When he was gone, Finnick pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his breast pocket. “Want one?”

“No thank you,” she said. Finnick didn’t smoke. Or at least, she had assumed he didn’t.

In lieu of a shirt, his shoulders and chest had been adorned with gold and red swirls, and he was wearing tight red pants that hid nothing. His eye makeup was smokey and dramatic; his entire body seemed to glitter against the neon lights that surrounded them. He perched the cigarette between his lips and lit it with a golden lighter. 

He blew out a plume of smoke. “You’ve been following me.”

“You canceled on me.”

“Something came up.”

“You’re lying.”

“You know there’s a support group for my stalkers. They meet on Thursdays.”

“Finnick,” she said, hurt. “I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going on.”

Finnick looked up and away. She followed his line of sight and saw a security camera trained on them. He looked to the other side. Another camera. 

“What’s going on,” he said, “is that I’ve given you everything you’ve asked for, and the one time I have to cancel, you hunt me down. Whatever you think this is, it’s not.”

“I thought, I just thought —”

He stepped closer and lowered his voice. “You thought what? I loved you? You think I could love someone who pays me to fuck them?”

“But you didn’t —” _Take the money_ , she wanted to say.

“You pathetic, lonely losers think you’re all so special to me. You’re not. You’re nothing to me but a paycheck.”

“Finnick,” she begged. She thought she had grown used to cruelty, but this wasn’t her father’s vitriol, meant to keep her at arm’s length. This was meant to cut her clean open and pull out her darkest fears.

“Grow up, Annie. The world doesn’t revolve around you. The sooner you let go of your childish fantasies, the better.”

She didn’t know how anyone could look so sad and angry and dead at the same time.

Then she ran. Behind her, she could hear him laughing, and he called after her, “Pleasure doing business with you!”

* * *

She couldn’t go home. Couldn’t be alone. Couldn’t face all those surfaces and walls and furniture on which Finnick had kissed her, around which he had laughed with her and pretended to love her. So she went to the only place she knew she was welcome, even if she wasn’t loved.

She tried the knob and found the door unlocked. Inside it was dark, but the TV was on, muted. Her father was asleep on the couch, an arm flung over his eyes, snoring loudly. She didn’t bother covering him up, and told herself it was because she didn’t care, but really she knew he slept hot and didn’t like covers. She went into his room and crawled into his bed, in the groove his body had left on one side. 

* * *

She woke up to a blanket being pulled over her. 

“Sorry I broke in,” she muttered. 

Her father sat at the edge of the bed, pet her hair with his meaty hand, the way he used to when she was young, the way she had forgotten about until now. “You okay?”

She shook her head.

“Have anything to do with the guy you’re seeing?”

How could he know about Finnick? And then she realized he didn’t. He knew only about an infrequent guest who could make her come a dozen times in a single evening.

“If he hurts you," he said, "I’ll kill him.”

 _Ironic_ , she wanted to say, but instead said, “You tried that already.”

His hand stilled. “You’re seeing the Odair kid?”

“No, he’s just my whore.”

She could feel the confusion and discomfort settle over him. Theirs was not a family that discussed or acknowledged this sort of thing. She'd never had "the talk." District 4, for all its laid-back beach attitude, clutched their literal pearls when it came to sex.

“Just hit me and be done with it,” she said.

“I’m not going to hit you.”

She took his hand and started smacking her own head with it. He pulled away. “What the fuck’s the matter with you?” 

Peacekeepers were probably listening in, but it didn't matter. It had all gone to shit anyway. She told him about meeting Finnick at her party. Not remembering him. Their standing appointment. Not wanting him for sex but for how lonely she was. Falling in love with him. Remembering him. Snow coming to the restaurant. And tonight, all the awful things Finnick said. 

“And now, now I think he’s in danger, and it’s all my fault.” After a moment of terrifying silence, she said, “Please be nice to me. Please just be nice. I don’t have anyone else.”

She steadied her jaw and braced herself for the worst. The only things her father hated more than crying were begging and having his own cruelty pointed out to him. She’d never been in this much trouble before. He might restrain himself from hitting her, but he’d tell her to get out of his sight until she cooled down. He’d call her an idiot for doing this to herself. He’d tell her to get her act together and toughen up.

“Ah, shit. Come here,” he said, and dragged her up against his chest. She clutched his shirt and cried, and he held her and didn’t say anything. 

* * *

An indiscernible number of days or weeks later, she was awakened by an urgent buzzing. She assumed it was her father bringing her food and sleep syrup, which he did every other day or so, but he had a keycard and didn’t usually buzz. At work, she’d burned her forearm badly by spilling chowder all over herself. It was an accident, but her father didn’t believe her, and put her on leave until they could “figure something out,” which she was sure meant another, longer trip to a psych unit. 

He had asked her several times what she needed — begrudgingly of course, but at least he was trying — and she had no idea, so he relied upon his tried-and-true method of filling her stomach and putting her to sleep. His thinking was that she couldn’t kill herself if she was unconscious. He had gotten his hands on a prescription dose of sleep syrup as well as morphling for the burn pain, and she was sleeping over twenty hours a day and floating on clouds the rest. 

More buzzing. She didn’t care. She fell back asleep. 

Minutes or hours later, someone began pounding at her door. “Annie. It’s me. Open up.”

In a haze, she stumbled out to the foyer, nearly tripping over the debris that had accumulated across her apartment floor. The blinds were drawn and sunlight gathered behind them. The television was muted, but it looked like Claudius Templesmith and Caesar Flickerman were announcing the year’s Food Wars chefs. She fought to stay conscious. It took several tries to twist the deadbolt and open the door.

Finnick looked more human than she had ever seen him. There was even a wrinkle in his shirt. He pushed past her, shut the door, locked it, then dragged over a chair and shoved it under the knob. Annie laughed, because it was something someone on TV would do. Then her legs gave out, and she sagged against the wall, and fell asleep.

“Annie.” Hands were cupping her face. “Annie, wake up.”

She forced her eyes open. Finnick was a fuzzy, pretty splotch. 

“What happened to your arm?” he asked. 

“Burn,” she muttered. She fell onto her side, curled up on the cold tile of her foyer. As soon as she closed her eyes again, she began dreaming of the fisherman’s boy. He was saying her name. Picking her up. Moving her somewhere bright and unpleasant. Taking off her clothes. Oh, it was one of those dreams. 

A blast of cold water. She gasped awake. “What the _fuck_.”

She was sitting in her bathtub, freezing water raining down on her, _as loud as a tracker jacker hive_ , he had said. Finnick was getting in too and tugging the shower curtain closed. He sat across from her, naked, knees to his chest. The two of them barely fit in the small tub. She was breathing through her teeth and shivering.

“Warm,” she said. Her tongue still felt heavy, but she was certain now she was awake and in reality. “Make it warm.”

Finnick twisted the faucet and the water heated up. “They won’t hear us in here.”

She tucked her bandaged arm against her stomach to keep it from getting wet. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”

Rivulets of water ran down his face and clumped his long eyelashes into black triangles. “I’m leaving tomorrow for the reaping. I came to apologize, and tell you the truth.” For the first time, he seemed at a loss for words, as if he didn’t know where to begin. “At the party, when you didn’t remember me, I thought you were kidding. Or maybe you already knew how dangerous it was to know me. So I played along. And then I realized you really didn’t remember me, and I figured, okay, we could have a night together, and that would be enough. But it wasn’t, and when you wanted to see me again — I thought, you know, maybe it could work. I would be your escort, and no one would have to know.”

“Know what?”

He looked at her like he couldn’t believe she had to ask. “That I love you. That I’ve always loved you.”

All she could do was stare at him and force herself to breathe. Her mind was too sluggish to run through scenarios and determine if he was lying, what motivation he would have, how he was trying to use this to hurt her somehow. She couldn't reach any conclusions and so she was forced to believe him.

In a happier situation, she might have kissed him. But this was not a happy situation, so she kicked his shin, and he said, "Ow."

“Why didn’t you find me sooner?" she demanded. "Why didn’t you tell me who you were?”

“Were you listening? It’s dangerous, Annie. In an interview, I mentioned a guy I used to hang out with, and he was dead the next week. I didn’t even do anything wrong. Snow just wanted to make sure I knew what he was willing to do to keep me in line. He killed my father too. The only reason he hasn’t killed Mags is because she’s so loved, and until now, she was the only person left to hold over me.”

The spray was turning cold already — the plumbing really was shit in this building — but she felt too numb to care. “While we're being honest, my father helped rig your reaping.”

He looked disappointed but not surprised. “I figured.”

“He wanted to keep you away from me. And he fed me so much sleep syrup I can’t remember anything.”

“I know.”

“How?”

“The Meltons did the same to me. I barely remember anything from those first few years.”

She was shivering again, whether from fear or cold, she didn't know. His confession still hadn't settled. There was so much she didn't know about him, about the danger they were in. By his logic, if Mags was preparing to mentor in the Games, that meant Annie stood alone in the crosshairs. 

“What happens now?” she asked.

“I train two kids to die in the arena. Then Cordia fills up my calendar and I start over again.”

“What about us?”

His silence rang louder than the obnoxious plumbing.

“Finnick.”

“I’m sorry, Annie.”

“But you’re miserable.”

“I’m either miserable with you alive, or I’m miserable with you dead. Either way, this is over.”

“There has to be a solution. There has to be something —”

“There’s not.”

She took both of his hands and held them in hers. Her bandage saturated with water. Her arm throbbed in pain. She didn't care; it kept her awake, kept her here with him. “Where’s the boy who stole food for the poor? Who started riots? Where’s the boy who fought so hard to survive in the arena?”

He looked at her a long moment. Bitter blue eyes, deeper and more dangerous than any sea. Finally, there he was. The real Finnick Odair. The fisherman’s boy. 

He pulled his hands away, held his knees close to his chest. “He’s still there.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for drug use, canon-typical violence, and verbal/physical abuse.

In bed, they held each other, warming from the cold shower. Still obliterated on morphling and sleep syrup, she nearly fell asleep again, but didn’t want to miss a moment of Finnick’s company. 

“Can we,” she began, unsure how to ask for what she wanted, or if she even should.

He gave her a look as if to ask, _Are you sure?_ What he'd said already was a risk. Just being here was a risk. He'd have to spend the rest of the night in silence.

“Not if you don’t want to," she added.

His face lit into a smile, a real one, one that said he wanted to more than anything.

They took their time, kissed a long while. Beneath the sheets, he teased her lightly with his fingers, until she was gasping into his mouth. Nervously, she reached for him, felt his cock pulsing and hard in her palm, but it wasn’t his hardness she loved as much as the low, pleased noise in his throat. Everyone in the Dolfinns group talked about how big he was, but she had nothing to compare him to. He certainly felt big. She couldn’t reach her thumb and index finger all the way around him. 

He climbed down her body and pressed his tongue into her, ate her hungrily, his hands gripping her hips to keep them from moving. She watched him; his eyes, his bright sea-blue eyes, never left hers. He seemed to control her entire body with his mouth, and each time she thought she was about to come, he slowed down, over and over, until she was begging for it. Two fingers inside her, sucking her clit into his mouth, he finally let her come. She clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle the shout the rose to her lips. He didn't stop, and just as the oversensitive feeling started to become too much, she came again, this time on an inhale, breath stopped in her chest while clenched around his fingers and tugged roughly at his hair. 

Breathless, he lifted away from her. His mouth was shining with her wetness, smiling in that arrogant, smug way she both hated and loved. His entire aura changed, and she could feel it in him now, the fidgety, excitable boy from District 4 who drove her absolutely nuts, who had far too much energy, whose personality was so much bigger than his body. 

He kissed her as he ground his cock against her, each pass sending another shock of pleasure up her body. 

“Will it hurt?” she asked. 

He paused briefly and nodded, gave her a look as if to tell her they didn't have to, but she said, "Please. I want to," and, as if he couldn't wait another moment, pushed into her. It took every ounce of willpower not to cry out, to alert her father that the mutinous boy had returned. After years of beatings and self-harm, she had a convoluted relationship to pain, and the kind she felt now — intense, breaking apart beneath him — was the sweetest, most consuming pain she’d ever felt. 

“More,” she said. He pushed in farther, breathing roughly against her neck. She could feel every muscle in his body tighten, restraining himself, probably, from fucking her as hard and fast as he was used to. What she wouldn't give to hear her name on his lips, to listen to his praises and promises.

He pulled out just an inch and then in again, this time all the way, and exhaled slowly against her neck. She looked down to where they were joined together. Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes, not from the pain but the pleasure of it, of being here with him, of feeling him inside her. 

Quietly, so quiet she could barely hear him, he said, “I’m sorry I couldn’t come home to you.”

“You did enough,” she said, and kissed him, and he thrust into her again, slow and easy like the sea.

* * *

After, he wrapped his arms around her, and she tucked her head under his chin and they held each other. She felt selfish. Tomorrow, he would be on a train to District 4 to meet his new tributes. He would get to know them, train them, have hope for them. And he would watch them get slaughtered. District 4 hadn’t had a victor since Finnick, and now she could see why. The Capitol had their darling from 4, and they didn’t want another. But she knew Finnick would do whatever he could to give them a fighting chance. He would never become jaded like Haymitch Abernathy. Every year, he would try. Every year, he would let guilt consume him.

She wanted to savor every second with him, but she was too comfortable, too sated, too drugged, and fell asleep.

* * *

For once, she stirred when he disentangled himself from her arms. It was dawn. She felt clear-headed and rested for the first time in weeks.

This was it. This was goodbye. 

He kissed her forehead and whispered, “Go back to sleep.”

She took his wrist and pulled him back toward her. “Don’t go.”

What did he do so early in the morning? Performed some kind of intense physical regimen to keep up his physique among the drinking and overeating? Went to his stylist? It probably took hours to ready him for the day’s events, clear him of any infections or diseases he’d gotten from his patrons, polish away the ligature and scratch marks, flush out the alcohol and drugs. Like a decadent meal, preparing him for future consumption.

She squeezed her eyes shut and held onto him. Hot tears stung her eyelids. 

“Don’t,” he whispered, “don’t cry, please."

He would be gone all summer, the heaviest of all seasons.

“It’ll never be okay, will it?” she said. “Nothing will ever be okay.”

He slid into bed and held her a while longer. She listened to his heart beat, a dull, slow thud. Proof of his realness, that beneath all that Capitol shine still hid the fisherman’s boy.

* * *

On the back of a receipt:  _ I love you, and I'll be thinking of you every moment I'm gone. _

* * *

Like most of the Capitol, the restaurant shut down for the Games. They were mandatory viewing across Panem, which meant any business that wasn’t essential had to close. All that remained were Games vendors in the form of street car bars and food trucks. The streets were a nonstop party, with the Games blaring bright and loud on every street-corner screen. The break gave her father the opportunity to make any necessary repairs or upgrades, renew or cancel employee contracts, revamp the menu, and take a much-needed break. Which meant, this year, that he began fretting over her. But of course he didn’t fret like a normal person, he did it passive-aggressively, or sometimes just plain aggressively. As he hunched over her stove preparing lunch for her — she could only stomach one meal a day between hours-long naps — he lectured her repeatedly on how she needed to “chin up and deal with the bullshit.”

Every year, she did her best to avoid the Games, but this year, she couldn’t. She watched all the reapings, the interviews, the scoring, the speculation, the preparation, and even the Food Wars, which she had in previous years staunchly avoided because of how much they reminded her of her mother. 

The tributes from 4 were Jemma, seventeen, and Ballast, sixteen. They were both strong, smart, and charming. Both of them looked as if they’d been raised on the docks, lean and tan. For the first time in years, their chances seemed hopeful. Finnick was the victor most interviewed. He had an hour-long special at ten p.m. two nights before the Games began, in which Caesar Flickerman took him through each of the tributes and speculated their chances for winning. Finnick, she could tell, was erring on strengths rather than weaknesses, knowing his opinion was integral in tributes securing sponsors. Even the weakest of the tributes, a twelve-year-old from District 10 who required the aid of braces to walk, received a compliment from Finnick: “So quickly you forget, Caesar. Just last year, the tribute who seemed weakest ended up winning.” He was referring to Johanna Mason. “And really, how many people thought I would win?”

The crowd went into an immediate uproar. _We always believed in you_ , the noise said. 

Caesar had to calm the audience down. Finnick held a hand to his heart as if reluctantly accepting a compliment. At home on her couch, Annie took more morphling.

* * *

Once the seventy-second Games began, the Finnick Odair Show was officially over. The arena this year was on top of a snow-capped mountain range, which gave District 2 a distinct advantage. At its coldest, District 4 only reached fifty degrees. Until Annie had moved to the Capitol, she had never seen snow. Without water to fish in or trees from which to make nets, the District 4 tributes didn’t stand a chance. Even 12 had more of a boost, a familiarity with the terrain, than 4.

After the first day, Annie grew suspicious — the District 4 tributes had not received their annual deluge of early sponsor gifts. In fact, they hadn’t received any. Perhaps Finnick knew their hopelessness and didn’t want to waste his resources. But that wasn’t like him. Was it? Or was he just as cunning and cutthroat a mentor as he was a tribute?

Even in the mid-Games interviews, Finnick was rarely present. In the first two days, he had less than a minute of screen time, whereas Gloss and Cashmere of District 1 had a handful apiece, and even Haymitch Abernathy managed an entire interview without slurring or falling down. Johanna Mason, who had aged significantly from last year’s victory, had a fraction of her former ferocity, her eyes glassy and distant as she spat incoherent vitriol into the mic.

Day three, Finnick didn’t appear at all. His tributes received no gifts. Ballast had brushed against something poisonous and scratched at his leg so roughly that he’d cut himself open, and now the cut was infected. It was something easily mended, the medicine not even particularly expensive, and yet he received nothing. He was beginning to catch fever. There were, somehow, fifteen tributes remaining. Five had died at the bloodbath, two had fallen to their deaths down a cliff side, one had been buried under an avalanche, and the most recent death involved human-sized vultures. It was setting up to be, as Caesar Flickerman speculated constantly, one of the longest Games in history. The snow made dehydration a non-issue. Nearly all the tributes had found a food source. Their focus was not killing each other as much as navigating the rocky, steep terrain. The arena was massive, and the Gamemakers were content to minimize their involvement. The theme this year seemed to be “slow fall.” 

Jemma had allied with the other Careers and became their leader. She had earned their respect when she took down an entire nest of giant vultures in order to cook their eggs. Meanwhile, on day eight, Ballast died of fever, huddled in a cave. The hovercraft couldn’t get to him, so instead, another avalanche came and buried his body in rubble. Why hadn’t Finnick sent him anything? Ballast had been doing so well; he was tough and sharp. It would have been easy to patch him up.

Annie hated to admit that she was almost glad for it — mentors were always interviewed after their tributes died. When the avalanche slowed to a stop, she crawled off her couch and waited on her knees in front of the television. No Finnick. No interview at all. Ballast died, the cannon fired, and it cut to commercial.

She turned on her communipad. Surely the Dolfinns were raging about the lack of Finnick. She clicked the forum shortcut. Nothing happened. She tapped it again. Nothing. She navigated to open it manually, but received a notification: _The location you are looking for cannot be found._

“No,” she said, tapping and tapping, window after window opening to tell her she couldn’t go where she wanted to go. “No, no, no.”

The archive, the work and community of thousands of fans, gone.

She curled up on the floor, communipad clutched to her chest. There was only one explanation: Finnick Odair was dead.

* * *

On day nine, eight tributes still remained — "Unprecedented!" Caesar Flickerman kept saying — and someone pounded on her door. She looked around her apartment for what felt like the first time in months, and found that at some point, she had stacked furniture against the door, including her couch, and she’d been lying beneath her coffee table for who knew how long. 

A beeping sound. The deadbolt unlocking. Someone pushing at her door. It was the Peacekeepers, probably, finally coming for her. Then again, they would just break it down, or shoot her right through it. They had to be here to capture her, torture her. Distantly, she thought she maybe should run, but where would she go? Out the fire escape? Jump straight out the window and let the force field bounce her back?

Her intruder managed to open the door just an inch, and said, “What the fuck, Annie. Let me in.”

Oh. Her father.

She stood on weak, wobbling legs, and managed to tug the couch down off its end — how had she gotten it there in the first place? — and it fell to the floor with a loud thud, upside down. From there, he managed to shove through. 

“What’s with all this?” he asked. There were booze bottles and pizza boxes strewn about. She hadn’t washed her hair in ages, and her clothes were so dirty they were nearly crisp. 

“I’m having a rough time,” Annie said. She felt like she was swimming.

“Go clean yourself up,” he said. “We’re leaving.”

“Where?”

He pointed to her bedroom and shouted, “Just do what the fuck I tell you!”

She frowned. Had he sold her out like he’d done to Finnick? Was he going to take her to her death? When she didn’t move, he shoved her, and she tripped on something and fell. Then she started crying. Then she started screaming. She screamed and screamed and couldn’t stop, like she had during Finnick’s reaping. 

Her father lifted her off the ground and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. She beat his back with her fists. One moment they were racing down the stairs, and the next she was in broad daylight. Her screams drowned in the street-side chaos and revelry.

He opened the back seat of a car and threw her in, climbed in himself and said, “Go.” 

Their driver was Mikelle. He was wearing a hat and sunglasses, and glancing at her surreptitiously in the rearview. His presence calmed her slightly; she trusted Mikelle. She had hired him personally because he had such a kind and quiet presence. The only way he would do something to hurt her is if her father had lied to him or threatened him. Which at this point was more likely than not.

She stared at her father and breathed through her teeth. Then she launched herself at him, fists flying, nails scratching, teeth biting. It felt good to lay into him, to hurt him even a fraction as much as he had hurt her. “You killed him,” she heard herself saying. She had begun sobbing. He was covering his head with his arms and she’d managed to make him bleed. “You killed him!”

Eventually he won, like she knew he would. He crossed her arms over her chest and held onto her, her back to his front, unable to fight her way out of the hold. It was how he used to calm her when she was younger and threw tantrums. He rocked her, and for the first time since she was very little, he began to hum in her ear, an old song the sailors used to sing at the restaurant.

He had done so much to save her. Why would he give her up now? Did he really love his restaurant more than he loved her? It was a stupid question, she realized. Of course he did.

Out the window, the buildings descended into short, squat things, the Peacekeeper barracks that resided outside of the city. They were leaving the Capitol, driving up into the mountains. She’d never been out this way before. It required special clearance. When they reached the Capitol gates, her father whispered, “Stay calm.”

He let go of her. She shifted over to her seat and watched her father dab away the blood on his forehead. There was a screen in the car that showed the Games. One of the District 1 tributes had slid down the mountain and now his leg was crushed under a rock. It seemed he was debating sawing it off. Mikelle rolled down his window. The Peacekeeper asked for his ID. He handed over a wad of cash, and just like that, they were waved through.

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Where are you taking me?”

“Somewhere no one can get to you,” her father said.

“What about you? What about the restaurant? What about —”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“But —”

He gripped her jaw and forced her to look at him. In his eyes she saw something she’d never seen before: fear. 

“Don’t ask stupid questions. I do what I have to to keep you safe.” 

Safe. She’d never felt safe with him a day in her life. 

“Dad,” she said, and watched his face soften, and he let go. 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pill bottle without a label. “Take one of these.”

“What are they?”

“Just take it and shut up.”

She could see tears gathered in his eyes. He had never cried before, not even at her mother’s funeral.

“Where’s Finnick?” she asked. “Is he dead?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you’ve spoken to him, right? You’ve seen him?”

A tear slipped down his weathered cheek, disappeared in his unkempt beard. He wrung his hands and looked out the window. “Whatever happens, I want you to know I tried. I did what I had to. And it may not have been right, but I don’t regret it. I’d do it all again if I had to. Maybe not as mean, or as angry, but I’d do it.”

She didn’t understand what he was saying. She took the pill bottle from his hand and opened it. Small white pills she didn't recognize. She slid one into her palm, lifted it to her lips, and swallowed it dry.

“Your mother didn’t see a way out,” her father said, still looking away from her as if he didn't want to be seen. “And I don’t either. But I’ll keep crawling through the dark till I hit a dead end. You too. You can’t give up like she did. I know you want to. I know you’ve tried to. But you can’t.” He finally looked at her. “You understand me? You can’t.”

“You’re scaring me.”

He took her hand, held it tight like she was the one who was falling down the mountain. “Somebody’s got to.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for psychological torture.

Annie awoke in a room that looked remarkably like an expensive hotel, on an appallingly wide and soft bed. Everything was white, blindingly so. Her head pounded. She rolled off the bed and stumbled into the bathroom and vomited, although it was only bile and burned her throat on its way up. On the sink, she found mouthwash and washed her mouth out. She caught her reflection and saw her hair had been washed, and she was wearing soft white pajamas with thick socks. The air conditioning was blasting so hard that she was nearly cold. 

An entire wall was a window currently showing a nighttime ocean. She found the remote and turned it off. The real view was of the Capitol, tucked into a valley down below. It was night, and the city’s lights looked lonely and untouchable. On her wrist was a communicuff. It seemed to run the same UI as her communipad, and vibrated with a message: WELCOME TO HAVEN, ANNIE CRESTA. HOW MAY WE SERVE YOU?

The question was followed by a series of choices: Food & Drink, Daily Needs, Activities, Social, and, ominously, Special Services. 

She clicked Daily Needs, and found another menu for Hygiene, Grooming, Clothing, Medication, and Massage. She clicked Medication, and found a long, long list of options. She got to the Ms and clicked Morphling, 10 MG, and was met with a warning that said, THIS MEDICATION IS UNAVAILABLE TO YOU. PLEASE SEE YOUR MENTAL SERVICE ASSOCIATE FOR DETAILS.

Mental service associate. Great.

She lay back on the bed. She’d only heard about Haven from servers at the restaurant, who had either been here or knew someone who had been here. It wasn’t the unit, but it was _a_ unit. More accurately, rehab. Her father had brought her to rehab.

Haven was known for its discretion. The richest and most famous Capitol citizens came here. It was possibly the only place in Panem that Snow couldn’t touch. Hurt the sanctity of Haven, hurt the sanctity of the Capitol. Snow may have been a tyrant, but he couldn’t control everything — he was obligated to keep the most powerful people happy. And Haven was built to keep powerful people very happy. 

She felt like a sitting duck. Easy pickings. And why was she so relaxed? She took a deep breath. The air smelled sweet, and she was certain there was some kind of gas that kept her calm and complacent. She looked at her communicuff and pressed the voice button. It beeped. “I would like to watch the Games, please,” she said.

A message scrolled across: THE HUNGER GAMES ARE UNAVAILABLE TO YOU. PLEASE SEE YOUR MENTAL SERVICE ASSOCIATE FOR DETAILS.

“Then let me see my mental service associate.”

THE NEXT MENTAL SERVICE ASSOCIATE AVAILABILITY IS IN 17 HOURS. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BOOK THIS APPOINTMENT?

“Yes.”

YOUR APPOINTMENT IS CONFIRMED FOR Jarrod IN 17 HOURS. PLEASE UTILIZE THE CALMING HARNESS IN PREPARATION OF YOUR MEETING.

She looked around and her eyes landed on a chair in the corner, which had seemed innocuous at first, but she could now see that it had slits in it where restraints would come out when she sat down. 

“May I have visitors?” she asked.

VISITORS ARE UNAVAILABLE TO YOU. PLEASE SEE YOUR MENTAL SERVICE ASSOCIATE FOR DETAILS.

She continued asking questions. Could she make phone calls? Could she see the news? Could she know the date or time? No, no, no. When was her release date? Her mental service associate would assess that. She wanted to ask if Finnick Odair was alive, but she already knew that information would be unavailable.

She tried to open the door. Not only was it locked, there was no knob or handle. Not even a keypad. Just a thin seam in the shape of a door. The window wouldn’t open either. She picked up a lamp and threw it. It thunked against the window and fell. Both remained undamaged.

Well, she thought, curling up in bed, at least if she couldn’t break out, it was unlikely anyone could break in.

* * *

It only took a few hours for her curiosity to get the best of her. She clicked Special Services on her communicuff. Then she had to click an additional button to consent to “adult themes.” There were an array of pornographic options, sex toys she could purchase, and even escorts. She clicked on the escorts menu, which brought her to a series of headshots and a list of physical details. She clicked on a man who looked a little like Finnick, if you squinted. Same hair color and dimples. Slightly darker eyes. She wondered if he had been hired specifically for his physical similarity. She clicked on his availability, assuming that if her Mental Service Associate took seventeen hours to get her, the escort would take days. But no. He had immediate availability. 

She exited out of the menu.

* * *

Prior to Jarrod the Mental Service Associate’s arrival, Annie’s communicuff asked her to please take a seat in the Calming Harness. As if beckoned, the Calming Harness lit up and welcomed her with a series of pleasant beeps. She sat in it, and straps slid over her wrists and ankles. She tugged against them, and they had the decency to give a little. 

Jarrod opened the door with a remote and closed it behind him. He was the kind of person whose face you forgot the second you looked away. He’d brought his own chair with him and took a seat. His name was embroidered on the breast of his royal blue shirt, a gaudy splash of color in a colorless place. 

“Welcome to Haven —” He looked down at his clipboard. “Annie. Can you tell me what brings you in?”

“You already know.”

“We like to empower patient narratives.”

President Snow wants to kill me and this is the only place he can’t touch, she wanted to say. My boyfriend is the most famous man in Panem and I’m pretty sure he’s dead, she wanted to say. I nearly overdosed on morphling and sleep syrup, and I can’t remember the last time I ate, she wanted to say.

“I’m not doing great,” she said.

He clicked his pen and smiled. “We can help with that.”

* * *

Haven could not help with that. Jarrod prescribed her a medicine called Lunevra, which made sleep syrup seem like candy. It was more addictive and made her float higher than morphling. Why they were handing it out in rehab was beyond her, but it put her to sleep and allowed her to dream lucidly. The dreams were so pleasant — her and Finnick making love on the beach, mostly. The few hours she was awake during the day, she sat curled in a ball, leaning against the window, watching the glittering Capitol in the valley below. Sometimes she changed the view to a seascape, and stood close enough to see the beautiful image scatter into a series of pixels. 

Her dreams began to feel more real than reality. Finnick came in wearing a blue MSA polo, telling her he was there to help her escape. She got out of bed and ran to him, and woke up by slamming against a wall. The second time he came as a window cleaner. The third, he arrived as an escort, but he had no memory of her. Once he came with her father, and they talked like old friends. Another time, she wasn’t in Haven at all, but back home standing at her stove. Finnick rang the bell, but when Annie went to let him in, her hand couldn’t reach the button, kept sliding off an invisible surface. Another, she was captured and tortured by Snow. Another, she found herself in the Games, dying repeatedly only to begin all over again. Dozens, maybe hundreds of times, she died in the arena. Sometimes she sat inside dreams for years, only to wake up and find she’d been asleep just twenty minutes. Time and space distorted and shifted, folded over itself. She could no longer perceive anything in a linear fashion.

Frequently she woke up from one dream to realize she had woken up inside a new dream, and woke up from that dream into another. In some of them, she could control her consciousness and therefore her body, and began killing herself to try to wake up. She’d jump off a building or impale herself with a knife. She never felt any pain, and always awoke in what she hoped was real reality, gasping and sweat-soaked. Then she’d huddle in the shower, shaking under the cold spray until she calmed down. Doubting, always doubting, she wasn’t just in another dream.

* * *

She had no idea how long she’d been at Haven, but the Games and after-parties had to be over. A new victor named. The restaurant would have opened back up. If Finnick were dead or missing, the Capitol would be rioting. He had to know that about himself, that he had sway. President Snow had to know that too, and that was probably why he kept Finnick on such a tight leash. A powerful ally; a deadly foe.

It was early morning when her door slid open. She was leaning against her window, touching the virtual beach at her fingertips, focusing on the tiny multicolored pixels that could never replace the feeling of sand between her fingers. 

“Annie.” Finnick again. She didn’t bother replying; buying into the illusion only made waking up harder. He knelt beside her, tucked her hair behind her ear like he used to. She swatted his hand away. “Annie, it’s me.”

She curled tighter around herself, put her hands over her ears, but she could still hear the muffled sounds of his voice trying to reassure her. She started slapping her own head in an effort to wake up, and when that didn’t work, she slammed it against the window. It hurt. Her dreams didn’t usually hurt. The medication was adapting to her, to make the dreams more realistic.

Finnick dragged her away from the window. She fought him and started screaming. Sometimes screaming helped her wake up. He grappled her to the ground and clapped a hand over her mouth. She was forced to look at him. His hair was longer, curls going every which way. His face was covered in makeup, a thick layer of foundation, mascara and glittering silver eyeliner. 

“Annie, we have to go. Please don’t fight me.”

He lifted his hand away, and she spat, “He’s dead. Finnick Odair is dead.” Her eyes welled up. She could barely see him, just a blob of teal and blue like a peacock. A dirty smudge in her sterile mind.

“I’m not dead. I just signed your release paperwork.”

This dream was being cruel and she didn’t want to be in it anymore. She got up to run into the window again, to hit her head even harder, but Finnick was too fast. He picked her up and set her on the bed. 

“If you’re not dead, then I must be,” she said.

He kissed her temple, her cheek. Held her tightly against him. “I’m sorry it took me so long. But I’m here now, and I have a plan to get us out of here. Out of the Capitol. Somewhere safe, where Snow can’t get to us.”

She started crying harder, and began beating her head, pleading with the dream to let her go just this once. She could take the torture and the dying and never knowing what was real, but she could not bear having hope, convinced that this was real only to be fooled a thousandth time. She sensed the dream laughing at her like all her childhood bullies.

Finnick grasped her arms and held them down. Her communicuff was beeping. Her heart rate had spiked, and it was urging her to do breathing exercises. She closed her eyes and tried to calm down.

“They give me this medicine,” she began. “I can’t — I don’t know what’s real. I’m always dreaming. I wake up, and I’m in another dream. Over and over. Like waves in the ocean. As soon as one ends, another comes up.”

“Lunevra is a club drug. It’s basically sleep syrup and tracker jacker venom.”

“Why did they give it to me?”

“I think it was Snow.”

It took a long moment to realize what he was saying. “I’m being tortured?”

“There’s no way to be sure, since it’s also used to detox. Dream your way through withdrawal.”

She shook her head. No, she decided, this wasn’t real at all. Her mind was capable of spectacular imaginative feats. Like his ugly peacock suit jacket. “I’m not falling for it again. You’ve tried to rescue me a hundred times before.”

“Okay, let’s say we're in a dream. I can help you make it a good dream.”

“‘I can help you have fun,’” she recited. “You told me that when we first met. At my party. Then you shoved your crotch in my face.”

“A great many citizens of the Capitol like my crotch in their face. And I did help you have fun.”

“You annoyed me all night.”

“And you broke that poor man’s camera.”

“And you weaseled your way into my apartment.”

“And you invited me to bed with you.”

“And you —” She tried to think of an insult. “Were a perfect gentleman.”

“How is that a bad thing?”

“Because if you hadn’t been, I could have gone on thinking you were a shallow, arrogant asshole.” 

“Best night of my life.”

“Don’t lie just because you’re in my dream.”

“I wasn’t lying then and I’m not lying now. Meeting you again was the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She shoved him. “You are by far the worst version of yourself I’ve ever dreamed.”

He pressed a light kiss to her neck. “Does dream-me not tell you how much I love you?” 

“He frequently forgets. He can be a real jerk sometimes.”

He trailed his kisses up until he reached her lips, and then he kissed her deeply, as if he missed her just as much as she had missed him.

“On behalf of every dream-me,” he said, “let me make it up to you.”

“How?”

“Follow my lead. It’ll be a nice, long dream with a big adventure, and nothing bad will happen. But you can’t try to wake up until it’s over.”

She nodded, and he helped her up on wobbling legs. He had a bag with him in which he’d put a change of clothes that she would never in a million years have chosen for herself: an uncomfortably tight black dress which he had to zip up for her and a pair of heels she could barely walk in. He had her kneel in front of him while he spun her hair into a tight bun and secured it with pins — where had he learned to do that? — then placed a large hat on her head and slipped an enormous pair of glasses over her eyes. 

“Makeup?” she asked.

“No makeup. The, uh, tortured-for-weeks-on-end look is in right now.”

“You’re not doing a good job making this a happy dream,” she said, teetering on her heels. 

He traced her lower lip with his thumb. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but no one in a million years would look at this outfit and think ‘Annie Cresta, the mad girl.’”

She frowned. “The mad _chef_ , thank you. And you never call me ‘sweetheart’ in my dreams.”

“Would you like me not to?”

“It’s fine. But as soon as I wake up, cut that shit out.”

He kissed the tip of her nose and cupped her face in his hands. “Are you ready?”

“I don’t know. What are we doing?”

“I’m going to show you a day in the life of Finnick Odair.”


	11. Chapter 11

Finnick called a taxi to pick them up from Haven. Annie was surprised to see how sparse and bland the place was outside her room, considering she’d been unconscious when she'd arrived. The only person around was the receptionist, who wanted Annie to sign a form. Annie could hardly hold the pen steady enough to put her name down. Then the reception took the comunicuff off, and Annie asked, “Is it true that you were torturing me?”

The receptionist looked alarmed, but Finnick came and said to the receptionist, “Don't worry about it.”

The receptionist stiffly gave them an information pamphlet and returned to her work.

“It’s really not nice to torture people,” Annie called behind her as Finnick steered her away.

Like in most of her dreams, Annie couldn’t make out the words on the information pamphlet. She squinted at it, saw only fuzzy symbols, and held it out to Finnick. “What does this say?”

“It’s about safely coming off your medication.” 

“Ironic.”

The taxi pulled up before she could ask more questions. It was a real taxi this time, a fancy one that drove itself, not Mikelle in a hat and glasses. Before Finnick opened the door, he said, “Once we’re inside, we’ll have no more privacy. Everything you say might be heard and everything you do might be watched.”

“What’s my motivation, director?”

“You have to pretend to be in love with me.”

“I am in love with you.”

He smiled, but it looked sad. “But you’re not used to putting love on display, and today I’m asking you to. Can you do that?”

“Just, be in love with you?”

“Publicly, overtly, wildly in love with me.”

She nodded, although she didn’t understand why he was treating it like a big deal. It wasn’t like she’d ever hidden her feelings for him. She’d told him she was in love with him about two minutes after she figured it out herself. If she knew how to hide the things she didn’t want to be seen, she’d probably be a lot happier as a person, but as it stood, she was choking on her own foot more often than not. 

He opened the door for her and she climbed into the back seat. A camera was positioned in the middle of the roof, the dome kind that had no blind spots. Inside it, she imagined a million tiny people watching her. She didn’t know if she was allowed to say anything, in case the tiny people were judging her. Performing without a script: classic dream setup.

Finnick tilted her chin toward him and kissed her. She wanted to pull away — people were _watching_ them — but Finnick had told her to follow his lead, and anyway there were some libidinous side effects to Lunevra that until now she had mostly ignored. (Although she’d somewhat gotten used to the profane dreams and many involuntary orgasms she had within them.)

“You have no idea how much I missed you,” Finnick said. She believed him but recognized he was only saying it for the camera. It was strange to think that she had spent months thinking Finnick was just pretending to be in love with her, when he actually was in love with her. And now they were both pretending to be in love with each other, but they actually were in love with each other, and yet somehow it still rang false. 

“Probably not nearly as much as I missed you,” she said.

“I missed you so much I couldn’t sleep.”

“I missed you so much I couldn’t wake up.”

He laughed because he had to, because even torture is funny when you’re being watched. “Is this a competition? Because I have it on good authority I’m excellent at winning.”

“You’ve already won me.”

He kissed her like he couldn’t stand another second away from her lips. His hand moved halfway up her skirt. Her skin felt like an electric fence, a buzzing all down her body. She wanted to tell him the Lunevra could make her come on a dime and so he had to be careful, but he didn’t seem to have much interest in being careful.

“Okay?” he whispered in her ear. She nodded, just a slight movement of her head. He slid his hand up her thigh and rubbed her lightly over her panties, which she knew were already wet because of the Lunevra and being in physical proximity to the most attractive man in the world, who happened to have spent his entire life loving only her.

It only took a few light brushes of his fingertips before she came, gripping his arm and trying hard out of habit, not to make any noise. Then again, she was supposed to be overt, so she went ahead and let loose with the moaning, and Finnick kissed her neck and kept touching her, and she came again. She suddenly understood why Lunevra was a club drug.

Just as she was beginning to cool off, the taxi stopped. The door popped open automatically, while his hand was still up her skirt. She could hear the camera shutters before she saw them, the Dolfinns and journalists and paparazzi waiting outside a popular bistro that was often touted as being a Cresta’s competitor. Finnick feigned embarrassment, then stepped out first and held out his hand to her. She took it and was nearly blinded by the flashes, grateful for the dark sunglasses he had given her. Her knees felt like water.

Questions were being shouted at them — personal ones about where she had been all this time, was she criminally insane, how did she like Finnick’s enormous cock — but Finnick ignored them and guided her by the hand into the restaurant. She didn’t know how he was being so graceful about it; she held her arm up instinctively to protect her head. No one was being physically violent, but it felt like they were willing to be, if they didn’t get what they wanted. Inside, Finnick had a reservation, and a hostess took them to a quiet table away from the windows. Annie was shaking badly, her heart in her throat. 

Finnick sat beside her in the booth, not opposite her, and said, “You get used to it.”

“No one should have to get used to that.” She opened her menu but she couldn’t read any of the words. Quietly she said, “You’re not just doing this to torture me?”

Finnick looked like she’d socked him in the gut. “This is going to work. I promise.”

“I’ll wake up and be somewhere safe.”

“You will. I swear.”

Tears slipped down her face. Finnick took a napkin and wiped them away. “‘You can’t let them see you bleed.’ That’s what Snow always says.”

“But I’m scared.”

“I know you are. But you have to trust me. Do you trust me?”

“I don’t trust my dreams.”

“When was the last time you had a good dream? One you wanted to stay in?”

“You were doing that thing with your tongue. You know, the thing where —” 

“I know the thing.” He smiled, and may have even blushed. Finnick Odair blushing. Definitely a dream. “And then what happened?”

“Nothing. It was just you doing that for a long time, and I came a lot.”

“Once we get through today, I’ll do the thing with my tongue. For hours.”

Just the thought of it, the two of them in a soft bed with hours to spend exploring each other's bodies, made her feel better. She shoved her menu at him. “Tell me what this says.”

* * *

Her entire body ached with the tension of holding herself together. She had blisters on her feet. Finnick wasn’t her Finnick, but the one she saw on television, except on occasion when he caught her eye and she could see he was still there under the flashy makeup and cheesy smiles. She didn’t have to worry about making false conversation; Finnick was adept at filling even the shortest silences, and people were always coming up to them asking for his autograph and wanting a photo. He kindly obliged and never once complained.

The only nature in the Capitol was a one-thousand-square-foot “park” made of astroturf and plastic trees sculpted by an artist who had clearly never seen a tree in their life. The "trees" had faded under the sunlight and looked wilted and pastel. Two guards stood watch at the entrance to keep eager paparazzi from following, but they were still swarming the perimeter and taking pictures. 

Finnick stopped at an enormous gaudy fountain meant to look like a giant gemstone and which spewed liquid that changed color. Far away it looked pretty enough, but close up she could see how grimy and stained it was, like everything in the Capitol. Like the Capitol itself. Finnick sat on the rim and Annie sat beside him. They were in near-perfect view of about a dozen photographers. Everything felt very planned.

Then Finnick pulled something out of his pocket and dropped to one knee. 

“Annie Cresta,” he began dramatically, “you are the love of my life. Will you marry me?”

She bit her cheek to keep from laughing. Seeing her stave off laughter made Finnick have to work his jaw to keep from laughing too. The ring was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen, a giant diamond set atop a golden band. She’d never choose anything like it for herself; it called attention to her knobby hands and would probably be difficult to clean in the event she got food in it, which she surely would. If Annie punched someone while wearing it, she’d take their eye out. The photographers probably didn’t need to zoom in, you could see it from space.

“Say yes,” he whispered. His eyes said none of this was real, but he wished it was.

“Yes!” she said, loud enough for any nearby mics to pick up. Birds flew off of their branches. He slipped the ring on her finger. They embraced. They kissed. They were fake engaged.

* * *

Midday, Finnick took her to a television studio, where stylists swarmed her, dressed her, did her makeup again, and shuffled her into a chair in front of a green screen. On TV, the studio seemed so large, but it was only about the size of her apartment. She had always assumed there was a live studio audience, but there wasn’t. Caesar Flickerman was flipping through note cards, two napkins tucked into his collar with smudges of bronze makeup on them. Finnick was nowhere to be found, and Annie suddenly wished for her hat and sunglasses back, and was finding it hard not to curl in on herself or find a weapon with which to end the dream once and for all. Every time she looked at her ring, she hated it a little more.

Finally Finnick arrived and took the seat beside her. He was in a completely new outfit, a teal blue suit that matched his eyes and also Annie’s dress. They were a couple whose outfits matched. Disgusting.

“What’s going on?” she whispered. Caesar took no notice of them, and the crew were all busy setting up.

“We’re doing a spot for  _ Good Morning, Panem. _ Just laugh at my jokes, and if you get asked a question, answer it as well as you can, then look at me and I’ll take over.” He hesitated, and added, “And just. Be in love with me.”

“I am in love with you,” she said again. Did he believe she wasn’t?

“Good. Stay that way.”

There were two cameramen in bug-like suits and visors on which she could see her own reflection. She didn’t recognize herself. She was wearing more makeup than she’d ever worn in her life, and her hair was up in a complicated series of braids held together by a flammable amount of hairspray. A director stood between the bugs and counted down from five. Instead of saying “one” she pointed at them, and the bug visors blinked red.

“Good Morning, Panem!” Caesar Flickerman said. “We have a very special show today. I’m here in the Capitol with guests Finnick Odair and Annie Cresta, who have a very important announcement to share.”

“Thank you for having us, Caesar,” Finnick said, and looked straight into one of the bug visors while holding up Annie’s hand. “We’re getting married.”

Applause boomed through the studio, and it was all Annie could do to keep from covering her ears. She looked around for the source of the sound and realized it was just a recording.

Caesar Flickerman laughed. “Annie, you seem nervous.”

“She’s used to working behind the scenes, Caesar,” Finnick said.

“Oh, right, right,” Caesar said sorrowfully. “I heard the news. Tell us, Annie. How have you been? How are you coping?”

Annie looked at Finnick and was about to ask what Caesar was talking about, when Finnick cut in. “Let’s stick to the good news, Caesar.”

Caesar moved smoothly on, though he looked irked about it. “May I be the first to say, congratulations. And to your fans, my condolences. There are many Dolfinns out there today mourning the loss of your bachelorhood.”

Finnick winked at the camera. “We never said we were monogamous.”

Caesar fanned himself with his cards. “You heard it here first, folks. Threesomes with the Odairs  are  an option.”

“Why stop at three? Like we say in District Four, the more the merrier.”

Annie had never heard anyone in District 4 say that in her life. 

“I’m thrilled you chose to share this news with us here today,” Caesar said. “Tell us, what was the proposal like?”

“It was just this morning, actually.”

A screen above their heads came on and showed high-definition footage of the proposal at the park. From the angle of the camera, it looked as romantic and serious as it wasn’t. 

Caesar was misty-eyed. “Beautiful, beautiful. I think I speak for everyone when I say, what a lovely love story. For the folks at home who might not know, how did you two meet?”

Yes, Annie thought, how did they meet?

“My father was a fisherman,” Finnick said. “He supplied Cresta’s, the old one in Four, and he usually hung around after deliveries.” Now he was looking at Annie, and it was really him, and the studio seemed to melt away. “She was always working. Shelling shrimp, gutting fish. And I was terrified of her, because she always had a knife.”

Caesar laughed. “A knife!”

“Eight years old with a knife the size of her arm.”

“But you finally got the courage to talk to her.”

“I said hello, and —”

Annie remembered now. A little grubby boy with sand in his wild hair. Never wore a shirt or shoes. Tan, freckled shoulders. She had been so baffled by his interest in her. 

“And I told you to go away,” Annie said. 

“Did he?” Caesar asked.

“I did. I mean, she had a knife,” Finnick said. More laughter from Caesar. “But I came back the next week, and the next, and eventually she let me sit beside her. She said, ‘You can help, but if you say a word, I’ll stab you.’ So I helped her and kept my mouth shut.”

“That must have been hard for you,” Caesar said. “The Finnick I know is very chatty.”

“It was. But it also taught me I could get to know someone in silence. I learned who she was by watching her, being near her, reading her. She taught me how to pay attention.”

Attention. That was how he had won the Games, by stepping back and observing, by being aware of his real opponent.

“So you’ve always loved her,” Caesar said to Finnick.

Finnick squeezed her hand. “Always.”

“But then,” Caesar said solemnly. “The Games.”

“I thought I’d never see her again,” Finnick said. “When I won, I promised myself I’d find my way back to her.”

“But you both got caught up in Capitol life.”

“We did,” Finnick agreed. “Until we ran into each other at her birthday party.”

The director pulled up footage of Finnick walking Annie home, the two of them huddled under her father’s coat. Her father. Where was her father? 

“What were you thinking in that moment, Annie?” Caesar asked.

“The same thing I was thinking all night,” Annie said. “‘This is the most annoying man I’ve ever met.’ I didn’t remember him at all.”

Caesar roared with laughter. “Annoying  _ and  _ forgettable! You and I have much different perspectives of Finnick Odair.”

“He was relentless,” Annie said.

“It was almost like I was already in love with you,” Finnick said, and leaned in to kiss her. And kept kissing her. And then deepened the kiss, until it was bordering on pornographic.

“Alright now,” Caesar said. “Think of the children.”

Finnick broke away but kept his eyes on her. “Oh, we’re definitely thinking of children.”

Caesar slow clapped. “Marvelous. Simply marvelous!” To the camera, he said, “Unfortunately we’re out of time for today, but we’ll be back tomorrow to interview Johanna Mason, who has just woken up from her second coma of the year.”

* * *

They left the studio to find a sea of people waiting for them, screaming for them, reaching out like they were royalty. Annie gripped Finnick’s hand as they waded through the crowd, flanked by bodyguards who had to shove people away. Finally they were thrown into another taxi which quickly sped off. This one, she noticed, didn’t have a camera. But that didn’t mean drive-by bugs weren’t picking them up. 

She was crying again. She wished she could stop crying. He held her and kissed her temple. “I’m sorry, I know that was stressful —”

“I remember now,” she said. “I remember your dirty feet and how you never shut up and, and…” She couldn’t continue. She just wanted to go home. “You’ve loved me this whole fucking time.”

“You knew that.”

“I know, but I didn’t  _ know  _ it, because I couldn’t remember. Now I do and I’m just. I’m so angry.”

“Why?”

“We deserve to be happy. And free. And not —” She plucked out several jewels from her sticky hair and threw them across the cab. “Capitol fuck-dolls.” 

They arrived at their next destination, a bistro owned by a couple from District 1, another winner of the Wars. Annie wanted to go to her restaurant, to see her father and stand in her kitchen and hold her knife.

When they got out of the taxi, they met another barrage of photographers and journalists asking them questions. Finnick put his arm around Annie and led her inside. As soon as the door to the restaurant was closed behind them, he whispered, “Just a few more stops, and we’ll be home free. We need every single person in Panem to know how in love we are.”

They sat at a private booth at the back of the bistro, cut off from everything, even the music. A headache pulsed at her temples. She still couldn’t make out the words on the menu. Everything was starting to feel more real than it had that morning, which terrified her regardless of the truth — if this was a dream, she’d wake up having truly lost all sense of reality; if it was reality, it was a nightmare.

She leaned her head on his shoulder. “My feet hurt.”

“I’ll give you a foot massage later.”

“In addition to the tongue thing?”

“In addition to the tongue thing.”

“But not at the same time.”

“I’m not that talented.”

“I don’t usually hurt in dreams, you know. I’m beginning to wonder if this isn’t a dream at all.”

He hesitated. “Do you want it to be a dream, or do you want it to be real?”

She had to think about it. “I want it to be a dream, so I don’t have to be scared.”

“Then it’s a dream," he said, curling his hand around hers, "and you have nothing to be afraid of.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: dubious consent (because Annie thinks it's all a dream), public sex, implication of incest, self-harm.

This was how Finnick lived every day of his life — hopping from obligation to obligation while avoiding some cameras and pandering to others. After lunch, he took her to a boutique, where a stylist team did a much more thorough job of her than the studio. They waxed every inch of her body, blasted away every blemish and pore, even fixed the small gap in her front teeth. When they were finished, she looked like a victor.

She and Finnick had a short, informal interview with a journalist named Claire Dufresne for a written article in tomorrow’s _Daily Drummer._ Claire was one of the most normal-looking people Annie had ever seen in the capital, straight blonde hair and a button-up blouse. She was also far less invasive than Caesar had been, and Finnick handled most of the interview while Annie leaned on him and tried to relax. She only had one thing to say, another memory that shot to the surface: “When he was a kid, he had so much energy, he just sprinted back and forth across the beach until he collapsed. He made these dumb pew-pew noises while he did it. You see why I couldn’t stand him.”

“Sounds like he was happy,” Claire said. 

Annie looked at Finnick, who was so caked-over with makeup and glitter that the only part of him she recognized were his eyes. “I didn’t know what happiness looked like until I met him.”

After the interview, they were shuffled into a photography studio. “Engagement photos,” Finnick explained, although Annie had never seen engagement photos quite this over-the-top. They were both dressed, more or less, as sexy sea monsters. 

Hands began positioning her and voices told her what to do. Her job was to stare deeply into Finnick’s eyes, and his job was to stare deeply back. It was a fraught endeavor. She kept crossing her eyes, which made him laugh, and him laughing made her laugh, and the photographers’ irritation only made them laugh harder. Then when they finally got serious again, it only lasted a couple seconds before they broke into yet more laughter. It went on like that for a while, until Annie's eyes were watering and messing up her makeup, and the head photographer called for an outfit change.

Her next “look” was a gold bikini that felt more revealing than if she’d just been naked. She was prepared to burst into laughter when she saw Finnick, but no. When she returned to the studio, he was chatting with the photographers. He looked like a god. Suddenly the two orgasms he’d given her in the taxi weren’t nearly enough. 

He did a double-take when he saw her, and given the way his jaw fell open, he was apparently thinking the same thing. The photographers directed Annie to lie on her back and Finnick on top of her “as if making love,” and that was not at all a problem, except it also was.

“Now kiss,” somebody said, the way children smash their dolls’ faces together.

Finnick leaned down and kissed Annie gently, tentatively, which she found odd until she realized he was restraining himself. But she didn’t want him to restrain himself. She nipped his lower lip, and he groaned and gripped her hair in his fist. She lifted her legs around his hips and he started grinding against her. Distantly she heard the shuttering of cameras. 

He tore himself away and pressed his forehead to hers. “Can you believe how many of these I’ve done, and somehow I’ve never had this problem.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about until she glanced down and saw his erection trapped in the leg of his gold shorts. He reached down and adjusted himself, and now his cock was nearly peeking out of the waistband.

“Hold on,” he said. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he spun them around, so she was straddling him. The photographers began to object, but he told them, “We need to depict this relationship as it really is.”

She smiled down at him, her hands on his chest. Perhaps she should have felt used and exposed, even disgusted, but it was fun, sort of, being sexy for a camera, rendering the great Finnick Odair helpless for all of Panem to witness. She kissed him again. A click, a flash. She knew that would be the cover shot.

The stylists took over once more to put them into their “nightwear” which meant club clothes. To the stylists’ credit, the clothes were pretty but comfortable, and the fabric was blessedly sweat-wicking. 

They were spat out onto the street again where a taxi was waiting for them. It was dark now, and the moment Finnick shut the car door behind them, he was on her, his hand up her skirt, sliding beneath her panties where she was already soaked for him. He slipped two fingers inside her.

There was a camera in the taxi, but he whispered, “Let them watch.” This wouldn’t be broadcasted, of course, but it would be distributed between Dolfinns, or what was left of them, and easily accessed by anyone looking for it. And certainly available to anyone looking to “prove” the relationship.

And if people were watching, well. She’d give them a show. 

She took his wrist and brought his wet fingers to her mouth, sucked them while his eyebrows lifted in surprise. Then she slipped down and knelt between his knees. She’d never done this before, mostly because everything they’d done until now had seemed meticulously planned on his part.

She undid his pants and tugged out his cock. He looked awed and nervous, and she loved seeing him like that, off his usual careful guard. She licked the tip of him, surprised how much she enjoyed the taste and feel of him on her tongue. His fingers slipped lightly into her hair as if afraid to offend her. 

She lifted off of him and said, “Fuck my mouth.”

“Fuck,” he said, and brought her head back down, shifted his hips slightly so she would take in more of him. “I hope you know you’re perfect.”

She felt his cock grow harder and larger in her mouth, until her jaw ached with the stretch, but she kept going, and soon she felt a flutter against her tongue and a flooding sensation at the back of her throat. Finnick was usually quiet when he came — which she’d always thought seemed out of character for him, as if he were shy about his own pleasure — but now he cried out. 

She lifted off of him and swallowed, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Smudges of her bright lipstick streaked down his softening cock. He tucked himself back into his pants. “One day,” he said, “I’m going to fuck you the way you deserve to be fucked.”

* * *

They arrived at the nicest restaurant yet for dinner, and she immediately started drinking. It was the date she’d secretly always wanted but never thought she’d have. People were staring at them, envying them. She realized she was having fun. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. For once, no one was brave enough to ask for an autograph or picture, although she could see camera flashes here and there. 

After they ate, they moved upstairs to the club. It was early in the evening but the dance floor was already packed. The music was so loud she could feel it in her ribs. She dragged him into the middle of the fray, where no one cared who they were. They were only bodies grinding and pressing against other bodies. Here, among all these people, was the most privacy they had ever gotten. 

He was at her back, his hands on her hips, his mouth at her neck. It had to be the Lunevra that made the whole experience euphoric. He dragged his hands up, one stopping at her breast and the other wrapped around her throat. Everywhere he touched felt like flames rising up her body. She twisted around in his arms and said, “Need you to fuck me.”

“Here?” he mouthed. She nodded.

He pulled her off the dance floor, to a booth in a dark corner, where he guided her onto his lap and immediately slipped his hand between her legs. It was quieter here. “So fucking wet,” he said in her ear. She lifted off of him just an inch so he could unzip his fly and pull his cock out. He held it steady and she sank down onto it. For a moment she was overwhelmed by it, as she had been the first time, and had to take a few deep breaths to adjust to the size of him. Then she fucked herself on his cock to the beat of the music, so it would look like she was dancing. A server came by and asked what they wanted to drink. If he could tell what was happening, he gave no indication. Finnick ordered them each a drink.

She closed her eyes and time seemed to fold over onto itself repeatedly, until it began rolling, and she couldn’t tell how long she’d been fucking Finnick Odair in this seedy booth — a few minutes? Years? She was feeling a spiritual revelation coming on, something about how she and Finnick were just two floating parts of a much greater whole, who had finally blessedly found one another, when she opened her eyes and saw Gloss and Cashmere, victors from District 1, sliding into the booth across from them.

Annie went to crawl off of Finnick, but he put a hand on her hip and kept her where she was.

Finnick proceeded to have a totally casual conversation with them which Annie couldn’t parse out in her state of unremitting bliss. Beneath the table, his fingers were toying with her clit and she was dangerously close to coming. She knew if she did, though, she wouldn’t be able to keep it quiet, and they’d be found out. If Gloss and Cashmere knew, they didn’t seem to care, possibly because they were used to seeing Finnick fucking in public, or they were obliterated on some drug that kept them from having opinions on things. 

The presence of Gloss and Cashmere brought other people over, and soon there was a crowd around them, and it wasn’t until someone shouted, “Make her come!” that she realized they had gathered specifically to watch Finnick and Annie fuck.

It was a dream, she reminded herself. It was all a dream.

But even if it wasn’t a dream — did she care? 

“What do you think?” Finnick asked. “Give the people what they want?”

She nodded. He stood and bent her over the table and began fucking her in earnest, his hand wrapped in her hair. People cheered them on like a sporting event. Others began touching themselves, and some paired or grouped off to their own booths. She thought Gloss may have been fingering Cashmere, then she remembered they were siblings so that couldn’t be true. Then again, she’d heard plenty of rumors about District 1 and their drive for “blood purity.”

Soon Annie was coming so hard she was shouting, not that it could be heard over the roaring music and cheering crowd. One orgasm led into another which led into the next, and she forgot what life was like without this pleasure searing through her body. Even though the club touted discretion, she was certain there were cameras on her. Good, she thought. Everyone would know how in love they were, that they couldn’t stay apart even long enough to go home. Everyone would want them, want to be them. The entire Capitol would become as obsessed with them as Annie had once been with Finnick, chasing down every scrap of information she could find. Filling her lonely life with what she thought was someone else’s happiness.

* * *

By the time they arrived at her apartment, she was certain the dream was almost over, but she was no longer certain it was a dream at all. The pleasure and pain she had experienced throughout the day was too great. And her brain could never devise an engagement ring so profoundly hideous.

The taxi dropped them off in front of her building. She could no longer walk, in part because of her heels but also because Finnick had fucked her brains out and made her come approximately a hundred times. The person who could walk after that deserved an award.

Finnick carried her to the door. He opened it with a keycard. How had he gotten her keycard? The only person who had one was her father.

In the elevator, Finnick set her back on her feet, but she leaned most of her weight on him. He stood stiffly and unsmiling. 

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Don’t ask me any questions until tomorrow morning.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

He gave her a deadpan look. She opened her mouth to ask another question. Stopped. Tried again. Stopped again.

“Please, please trust me,” he said. “I promise it’ll all make sense soon.”

The elevator stopped on her floor and Finnick lifted her again. Her door was covered with yellow caution tape which Finnick ripped down. He beeped them in with the keycard. 

He didn’t turn on the light, but he didn’t need to. The place was demolished. There were holes punched into the walls. Her couch had been ripped open. The fridge was on its side. They’d even taken off her lovely marble countertops. 

“Pack everything you’re going to need.” He glanced at his watch. “We have five minutes.”

She knelt down and picked up a framed photo of her parents, the glass shattered. “Where's my father?”

“Annie,” he said, and looked like he was about to cry.

“Where is my father?” she asked again.

“I promise, I’ll explain everything tomorrow. We made our move and we have to leave before Snow counters. If he gets the chance, we’re dead.”

She had no choice. She went to her room which was only slightly less destroyed than the rest of the apartment, pulled a bag down from her closet, and began shoving things into it.

She chose senselessly: her mother’s dresses, the broken photo, her father’s coat, a package of hair ties, some nail polish. She’d spent her entire life obsessing over her possessions, but not a single thing seemed important anymore. She changed quickly into a t-shirt, jeans, comfortable shoes, and when she met Finnick back in the kitchen, he had rolled his sleeve all the way up and was pressing a knife — her favorite knife in fact — to his arm.

“Finnick,” she hissed, and grabbed the knife away from him. 

“I need to cut the tracker out,” he said.

She couldn’t watch him hurt himself, but she couldn’t bring herself to hurt him. Still, she was more skilled with a knife than he was. She took it from him and said, “Sorry,” and cut into his flesh. He didn’t even wince. He watched her work as if from far away. It broke her heart, that anyone could have been hurt so badly that this kind of pain didn’t even register.

She reached into the cut and pulled out the tiny square embedded there. Finnick plucked it from her fingers, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it under his heel. 

“We have to go,” he said.

“But you’re bleeding. Let me at least —"

"We don't have time."

Her hand was slippery with his blood. He took it in his own and tried to pull her with him, but she wouldn’t move. 

“Tell me what we’re doing,” she said.

She'd never seen him so afraid. “We’re going home.”


	13. Chapter 13

Finnick locked the door of their room in the sleeper car. Annie sat on one of the beds and clutched her bag to her chest. She never thought this was how she’d be going home, never thought it would be this easy to leave the Capitol, although she was sure Finnick had to pull a lot of strings to make it possible. The train jolted forward and soon they were moving at full speed. Yellow tunnel lights streaked past.

“Won’t we be followed?” she asked. She wanted to know more about the plan, but the train was likely bugged.

Finnick slumped onto the opposite bed, holding one of Annie’s t-shirts against his bloody arm. “Probably.”

“What happens if we get caught?”

He leaned his head back against a wall and closed his eyes. “Either they die, or we do.”

“Won’t Snow just blow up the train? Stop it somehow?”

“Snow is terrified of the Districts cutting off the Capitol’s food. Trains control the supply. He won’t risk interrupting the schedule.” He opened his eyes again. Annie had never seen so much anger and hatred in anyone, let alone Finnick. “The Capitol is a bowling ball on the head of a pin. Any disruption can topple it.”

“You’re scaring me.”

His expression softened. “I’m sorry.” He leaned forward and put his head in his hands. “I’m so sorry. For everything. You were tortured. They fucking tortured you. And they —” He stopped abruptly. “Your father.”

“What about my father?”

“The restaurant caught fire. He was staying late...” He trailed off as if there were no more words inside him. 

“Why?” she asked, unable to feel anything.

“To punish me.”

“But you barely know him.”

“I got to know him. During the Games.” 

Slowly he relayed the story. Her many suspicions had each been a little bit right, but there was a lot she’d gotten wrong. The District 4 tributes held promise but had no flair for securing sponsors, which left Finnick to dole out his services and beg for sponsorship. It shouldn’t have been a big deal; it was what he did every year, but this time he just couldn’t, not knowing he loved Annie and she loved him. A taste of what it felt like to truly want someone had ruined his ability to pretend, and so he began saying no to his patrons, who then withheld their sponsorship and told Snow about their displeasure. As the District 4 tributes proceeded to do well, Finnick was committed to finding other ways to help. The boy, Ballast, the one who had fallen ill with fever, needed medicine badly, and so Finnick went to Annie’s father to ask for sponsorship, knowing William Cresta was probably the one man in all of Panem who had no interest in fucking Finnick. Her father’s hatred toward him was difficult to pierce, but Finnick posed it as a favor among fishermen. Her father relented. Finnick went to send Ballast the medicine, but it was too late.

The following day, Finnick received a single white rose and knew Annie was in trouble. He called her father and told him the truth, and recommended Haven, per Haymitch Abernathy, who had been there countless times. Meanwhile in the Games, Jemma was doing fine, but Claudius Templesmith had announced a “feast” at the top of a summit on which a great prize was waiting — heated clothes, a tent, a sleeping bag — and the first to climb it would win the supplies. Every day the weather grew colder. Jemma needed a rope to scale the summit. It had been a test constructed specifically for Finnick: he could visit any one of his patrons, secure their sponsorship, and ensure the victory of his tribute. But he refused. Annie was safe, or so he thought. The only other person he loved, Mags, was mentoring at his side, and the attention of the Games made her untouchable. 

Jemma was smart; she didn’t need the feast badly enough to attempt the climb. She had found a cave and could build her own fires. She could hunt. She melted snow for water. The other tributes were too weak to reach the feast themselves. To win, all she had to do was wait. Nature would take care of the rest. 

But she attempted the climb without the rope, and fell to her death.

The day the Games ended, Cresta’s caught fire. William Cresta was the sole victim of a tragic accident, but the news was buried under the victory of the boy from District 1, who had cut off his own leg after it had been crushed under an avalanche. And in Haven, Annie was being blasted with a reality-altering club drug under the guise of “treatment.”

“Jemma would have won,” Finnick said. “It’s my fault. I was too proud. I thought I could beat him. I thought if I could just keep you safe through the Games, we could escape.”

Annie remembered Jemma. She was tall and strong and pretty. Even if she had won, she would have walked into a life as controlled as Finnick Odair’s or as miserable as Johanna Mason’s. 

“Why aren’t you saying anything?” Finnick asked. “You should hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” Annie said quietly. 

The day her mother died, Annie had found her body on the beach and thought she had only fallen asleep in the water. Her mouth was blue and her skin white. When she didn’t respond, Annie almost started crying, but she knew her father would be angry if she did. She sat in the wet sand, the sea soaking the bottom of her dress. Her father would blame her for this, she thought. It was probably her fault, though she didn’t know what she had done. Her mother had only gone out for her morning swim. 

So Annie did what she always did: nothing. She lay down beside her mother and waited for the ocean to drag them both in. It would be better this way, she thought. She would rather die with her mother than live with her father.

Her father found them just minutes later. Annie couldn’t remember what happened after that, but she knew she had felt then what she felt now — mild curiosity and confusion, a laugh or a sob or both climbing up her throat, the sensation of being poised at the edge of a deep ravine.

“He died to save me,” Annie said. “He hated you, but he was willing to help you. So Snow wouldn’t kill me.”

Finnick looked down at his hands. “He was a good man.”

“No, he wasn’t,” she said. “But he didn’t deserve to die.”

She lay down and faced away from him. If she was asleep, she was about to wake up in Haven. But she had a feeling this wasn't a dream.

* * *

The first thing she saw when she awoke was her engagement ring. Sunlight filled the sleeper car. Her entire body ached as if she had a fever, and she felt vaguely nauseated. When she sat up, Finnick was sitting on his own bed, still made, his knees tucked against his chest. He was still wearing his club clothes from the night before, but they were wrinkled and covered in dried blood. Outside, an orange sun rose over the desert, mesas towering up from dry earth.

“Tea?” Finnick asked.

She nodded. There was a cart between them with some food whose smell made her more nauseated, and a teapot from which Finnick filled a mug. He dropped two sugar cubes in. She hadn’t taken sugar in her tea since she was a kid. All this time, he had remembered.

“Try to eat something,” he said. 

She sipped her tea and nibbled a croissant. Everything felt stilted and awful between them, like she was sitting with a stranger. He looked so human and sad. Suddenly she was afraid of him — not that she knew deep down he was a ruthless killer, but that she would finally see the whole of him, the flaws and failures and dark crevices all people had. She had never been close enough to anyone to see and accept their faults, especially not in the Capitol where everyone kept them so hidden. Where they were going, would she have the opportunity to know him, the real him? And if she did, would she continue loving him?

* * *

Annie caught a glimpse of the ocean from the train, just a moment between tunnels, but it was enough to bring her to the window and press her hand to it as if she might be able to touch it. The ocean, her ocean, was almost within reach. 

As soon as they stepped off the train, she could smell the salt in the air. The District 4 train station was just a block from the sea, and she dashed immediately toward it, not caring about the people staring, the heavy Peacekeeper patrol, her blistered feet.

She reached the beach. No one was around. Far behind her, Finnick called her name. She stopped only to tear off her shoes, shirt, and pants, and sprinted toward the water. Flecks of driftwood and shells stung the bottoms of her feet. The sun-soaked sand was hot and it burned, but soon she reached the wet, packed shore, and a wave came to touch her toes.

She kept going, until the water came up to her waist. She dove forward and began to swim. It had been years since she swam, but the skill had not left her. Each stroke flooded her mind with forgotten memories — Finnick teaching her how to plug her nose and close her eyes and slip under the surface. Swimming circles around her like a shark. Coming up between her legs and lifting her up, only to toss her off his shoulders back into the water. Going out on his father’s trawler and fishing, his unwavering focus as he threw his spear. Cooking over an open fire at sunset, Annie’s basket of ingredients she snuck out of the restaurant. Lying side by side in the cool sand, while she wondered if she’d ever get to marry this boy, or if they’d die before they got the chance.

By the time she stopped swimming, she was veering quickly toward exhaustion. She looked back. The beach seemed as far away as the horizon. She would not have the strength or energy to swim back. This must be how her mother died — reaching for something impossible, unable to turn back. A wave or riptide pulling her under. Not strong enough, or perhaps not bothering, to fight it. The sea was so much like the Capitol, Annie thought. Beautiful to look at, but deadly to wade into, unless you had been born in it.

Here seemed like a good place to die. She wondered if her mother had thought the same. Had it been intentional, or had she only gotten carried away by the promise of peace?

Annie felt something grip her ankle, and nearly screamed, but suddenly Finnick breached the surface. He wrapped her in his arms, breathless, and said, “I thought I lost you.”

“I’m sorry. I swam too far.” 

Gentle waves crested against them and pushed them closer to the beach. She couldn’t bring herself to let go of him. She remembered another time she had held onto him like this when she was very young, shaking and scared and apologizing. It had been one of the first times he took her out in the water, each time a little farther. But this time he had gone too far and she began to cry, even though it made her feel weak and stupid. She didn’t want him to see her like that, like a spoiled child, a coward. She thought he would get angry with her, blame her for ruining their fun day, and he wouldn’t want to be her friend anymore. But he brought her back to shallow waters and apologized for scaring her. She couldn't believe someone would apologize for something that was her fault.

When she finally calmed, he told her to lean back into the water. She didn’t want to, but he promised he wouldn’t let her sink. So she did, and he held her up at the surface. She relaxed, and felt his arms fall away, but there she remained, floating beneath the sun.

Now Finnick tucked a wet strand of hair behind her ear. "It's not safe here. We have someone to meet, and then we have to leave."

There were no bugs in the middle of the ocean. She could finally ask him. "Where are we going?"

"District Thirteen," he said, like it was a totally normal thing to say.

"There is no District Thirteen."

"There is, and they're waiting for us."

* * *

They walked the length of the beach. Annie was cold and uncomfortable. Finnick gave her his suit jacket which only helped a little, and held her hand which helped a lot. She thought when she finally returned home, she would feel happy and relieved, but the old Cresta’s was no longer here and both her parents were dead. All around them, people were starving and homeless and miserable. District 4 hadn’t changed at all, but she had. Even the beach seemed so much smaller than it was in her memory. Finnick was walking quickly. It was clear they had to be somewhere at a certain time, but she was so overcome with her past that she couldn't conceive her future.

Finnick carried her bag on his shoulder. When they escaped, he had brought nothing of his own, and she realized he didn’t own anything. His clothes were made by his stylist; he only wore each outfit one time and then it was sold to the highest bidder. He hadn’t been allowed to bring anything with him to the Games. She wondered what it was like, to own nothing. 

There were no Peacekeepers on this stretch of the beach. There never had been for as long as she could remember. She always suspected their uniforms were cheaply constructed and not made for sand or water, and so they preferred to patrol closer to the city center, on concrete and asphalt. When she was growing up, the beach was where people traded, groups of barterers walking up and down the coastline, all day every day. She didn’t see any of them now, but that didn’t mean they weren’t around. Families were settled in makeshift tents, driftwood fire pits cold in the light of day. No one came here for fun. They came only because the water was cool and the sand soft, and looking at the ocean always made your problems seem insignificant. It was hard to be miserable while looking at something so huge and beautiful.

No one paid them any mind. It was just like people from District 4 not to notice or care about Finnick Odair in what looked like a soaking wet, blood-covered prom outfit, holding hands with the daughter of William Cresta. People always said District 4 ran on “beach time” which meant nothing happened, and what did happen happened slowly. The old Cresta’s was known (and loved) for its abnormally slow service. You’d never come to Cresta’s for a quick meal; it was an event, an evening out.

They reached the seawall. Annie stopped abruptly. Finally she remembered. Solomon calling Finnick's name. The strain of Annie’s vocal chords as she screamed. Her friend Mathilda’s father covering her mouth and dragging her away. A bottle of sleep syrup Annie’s parents had given Mathilda’s family in case she “had an episode” while they were competing in the Food Wars.

“What’s wrong?” Finnick said.

“Your reaping. I couldn’t stop crying. They kept putting me to sleep, because whenever I was awake, I’d scream for you. I screamed until I lost my voice. That's when everyone started calling me crazy.”

Before Finnick got taken away, Annie had been allowed to say goodbye. He held her face in his hands and wiped away her tears. She remembered how pink his nose was, and she couldn’t tell if he was trying not to cry or if it was just sunburn. It was hard to believe anything could make him cry, and even harder to believe he might have been crying for her.

 _You can’t leave,_ she had said. _You’re my best friend._

_I’ll find you again. When I win. I promise._

She spotted a Peacekeeper up ahead. Another joined him. There were a half dozen of them up and down the seawall. Finnick tugged Annie down into the marram grass. 

“Are they here for us?” she asked.

Finnick’s silence was answer enough. A single bowrider floated near the seawall, and given how intently he was looking at it, she assumed that was their destination. There was no way to reach it without being seen. 

“Wait here,” he said, and moved to leave, but she grabbed his wrist.

“They’ll shoot you.”

“They have orders to capture, not kill,” he said, but she wasn't sure she believed him. “I’ll be okay. I promise.”

“You promised you’d find me after you won the Games.”

“I did.”

“It took you six years.”

“I was a little busy.”

She wanted to argue him further, stall him, convince him there was some other way, but she knew there wasn't. If District 13 was real, it was their only chance. She pulled him down and kissed him. A goodbye kiss, if he was about to die. 

“I love you," he said.

"I love you too."

She curled up in a ball and closed her eyes, covered her ears, hummed the drinking song her father had always sung. Her dead father. Soon she’d have a dead fiancée. And then the Peacekeepers would capture her, torture her, kill her.

But if they didn’t, if she managed to walk away from this alive, without Finnick, she’d spend every minute of her remaining life plotting to kill Coriolanus Snow.

Her curiosity got the better of her. When she opened her eyes, a Peacekeeper lay dead a dozen yards away. On the seawall, Finnick was jabbing a spear into the neck of another Peacekeeper while two others were shouting at him to stand down. The rest were running toward him, their guns raised. Several people had gathered a safe distance to watch. 

A Peacekeeper shot at Finnick and missed. Another ran up behind him. Finnick threw him off the seawall onto the sharp rocks below. More shooting. She couldn’t tell if Finnick had been hit. There were only three left. Finnick was holding his own against two, but a third was still creeping in from a distance, his gun raised.

Annie rooted through her bag for her knife, and before she knew what she was doing, she started running toward the third Peacekeeper, whose gun was aimed at Finnick’s back. Finnick had thrown another of them off the seawall, and was just about to stab the next, when Annie sank her knife into the neck of the one about to shoot. She was surprised how little resistance she was met with; even salmon was fleshier and tougher to cut through.

The Peacekeeper gurgled and fell to his knees. She watched him topple over, his blood soaking his white uniform, the sparkling sand. As she wiped the blade off on her pants, she thought that maybe Finnick was right — she could have been a victor. When she looked up, Finnick was staring at her. He dropped the spear and ran to her, lifted her into his arms and kissed her. They were surrounded by the bitter scent of copper. Everything was slippery with blood. The crowd began to applaud.

Annie had seen one man with a camera. She imagined the footage leaking to the Districts — Finnick Odair escaping the Capitol, defeating a team of Peacekeepers, riding off toward the horizon. The first raindrop of a violent storm.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of past suicide attempt; past underage prostitution, drugging, non-con.

An old woman was waiting for them on the bowrider. Finnick had gotten injured, and Annie had to help him down the seawall. He winced as he climbed into the boat, but still turned right around again and lifted Annie down into it. The old woman greeted them with a small wave, and Finnick said, “Annie, Mags. Mags, Annie.”

“Lovely meeting you,” Annie said, and almost reached out to shake hands, but hers were covered in blood. Mags said something unintelligible as she turned the engine. Finnick had only just untethered them from the dock when she hit the gas. They zoomed off so quickly it looked like they were slicing through the ocean, and Annie fell back into a seat.

Finnick sat beside her, an arm over his stomach. He was growing paler by the minute. Annie lifted his arm away and saw blood spilling out of a bullet wound in his stomach. 

“I’m fine,” he said.

“The fuck you are.” She rooted through her bag and found another t-shirt, pressed it hard against the wound. They were headed due west, but there was nothing west of District 4. At least, nothing they could get to without food or supplies.

“Where are we going?” she asked. Already his blood was soaking through the shirt. There was so much of it. More than the time she’d slit her wrists, and she had almost died.

“Pick-up point,” Finnick said weakly. 

“How long?”

Mags shouted something back at them, but Annie couldn’t make it out. “What?”

“Fifteen minutes,” Finnick clarified.

“What do I do? Tell me what to do.”

He closed his eyes and leaned his head back. “Nothing left to do.”

Once, her dryer’s heating coil stopped working, and she opened the dryer door to find all of her clothes still soaking wet. She decided she would rather kill herself than deal with hanging up her clothes on the balcony — her neighbors would complain about her to apartment management (there was a strict “no hanging clothes on balcony” clause), and apartment management would send her a sternly worded letter. Then she would have to call the repairman, who would berate her for “misusing” the dryer by over-filling it, and charge her a hefty fee that her father would find out about. And her father would then proceed to berate her worse than the repairman by using personal insults and targeting Annie’s insecurities about being lazy and negligent. She had slid to the ground and put her hands over her ears and started crying, because the world was far too much for her, and she too weak for it, and she would never be well enough to handle decades more of these tiny agonies.

Yet here she was, minutes after killing a Peacekeeper, watching Finnick Odair’s blood pool between her fingers. For once, she wasn’t shaking. She was not tempted to curl up in a ball and lock herself away. Not once did she freeze, or collapse, or do nothing. 

“If you die,” she began, “I swear I’ll —”

He gave her a hazy smile. “What are you going to do, kill me?”

* * *

Mags cut the engine. They were in the middle of nowhere. Miraculously, Finnick was still conscious, but barely. He was blinking slowly and his breathing had grown labored. Her arms ached from pressing so hard onto the wound. The midday sun was beating down on them, and she could feel her arms beginning to burn. She couldn’t stop staring at the hundreds of freckles that appeared vividly on Finnick’s cheeks. Now that they had stopped, all she could hear was the white noise of the ocean, the creak and clunk of the boat as it lifted over each wave. In the front seat, Mags looked back and said something Annie couldn’t decipher.

“What did she say?” Annie asked Finnick.

“She told you, ‘He’s had worse.’”

Annie looked to Mags. “Should I be doing something different?”

Mags waved her hand dismissively. This time Annie caught, “He’ll be fine.” To Finnick, she said something that sounded suspiciously like “Quit being a baby.”

Finnick laughed, then groaned in pain.

“Fucking victors,” Annie said.

She didn’t notice the hovercraft until it was suddenly directly over top of them. A ladder came down. Annie helped Finnick onto it first, then Mags, and then she hauled her bag over her shoulder and grabbed onto it herself. It locked her entire body in place as it dragged her up, a bizarre sensation that, in different circumstances, she might find appealing.

When she climbed aboard, Haymitch Abernathy was waiting for them. Two medics had put Finnick on a stretcher and raced him to another part of the craft. Neither Haymitch nor Mags seemed concerned. They embraced like old friends, then Mags looked to Annie and offered some manner of introduction.

Haymitch clapped Annie on the shoulder. “You sure know how to make an exit, don’t you?”

“They tortured me and killed my father,” Annie said.

Haymitch gave her a grin that could be described as both “shit-eating” and sympathetic. He pulled a flask out of his pocket and handed it to her. “Makes you an honorary victor. Come on, let’s get you strapped in. We’ve got a long ride ahead.”

* * *

Annie rested her head against the window and looked at the desert pass below. They were headed back east, and the sky was rapidly darkening. She had finished off Haymitch’s flask. Tipsy, she tried finding Finnick, but Haymitch steered her back toward her seat, buckled her in, and took the flask back. He seemed terribly amused by her, and she had a feeling that if she had been a victor, they would have been good albeit very drunk friends.

She got that sensation again, the same one she’d felt when Finnick told her that her father was dead. Hovering at the brink of an abyss. Shoving down something awful rising within her. Finnick’s blood had dried all over her — her hands, arms, face; it was caked in her nail beds, its scent in her nostrils — and left her skin feeling dry and stretched thin. She thought back to the first time she’d tried to kill herself. Her father holding her, shaking her, screaming at her. Medics wrapping up her arms and racing her to the hospital. She’d been so frustrated that everyone had made such a fuss about it when she didn't think it was a big deal at all. 

Now her father was dead. Finnick was dying. She killed a Peacekeeper. Snow tortured her. And she was flying off to a place she never knew existed. She wanted to believe it was still a dream, but her entire body ached the way it never did while she was sleeping. 

It all hurt so much, in so many ways. This was the closest she had ever been to freedom, yet somehow she couldn’t bear the thought. The hovercraft started spinning violently, tipping over like a boat in a storm. Distantly, she heard someone crying. It was unpleasant. She covered her ears. The sound didn’t stop. It might have been coming from her. It was not a quiet crying but a wailing sound that slowly rose to screaming. So unnecessary, she thought. Quit making a big deal of it.

A sharp pinch in her arm. A sudden sinking. Darkness, finally. Soft, empty silence.

* * *

Before she opened her eyes, she knew already that she was the farthest from the sun she had ever been. In the Capitol hospital, whenever she woke up, she felt weightless and happy from the morphling. Here, wherever she was, she wasn’t in any pain, but she definitely didn’t feel great. 

Reluctantly she opened her eyes. The room was dim with a soft yellow light. Finnick was asleep in a chair beside her bed, his head at an uncomfortable angle. He was wearing a grey jumpsuit. 

She couldn’t believe Finnick was actually sleeping. She couldn’t believe he was alive. She couldn’t believe he was wearing something so hideous. 

She watched his chest rise and fall. Except for a bruise on the side of his face, he looked fine. Definitely not the way she’d imagine a man who had been shot through the stomach would look.  She pinched her arm. It hurt. Not a dream, then. She was alive, and safe, and so was Finnick. They made it. 

Her eyes filled with tears. She covered her mouth so Finnick wouldn’t hear the sob that escaped her, but he did, and awoke, and reached for her hand. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s so unfair,” she said, voice cracking.

“What is?”

She made a gesture down his body. “That you can look so hot in something so ugly.”

The clinic bed was narrow but Finnick managed to squeeze in beside her, his head on her chest. There were several beds in the room, but they were alone. No one had even walked past the door. 

“So what happened?” she asked, wiping the last of her tears away. It was hard to cry when Finnick’s body was pressed against hers, and even if she knew it wasn’t, for the moment, everything felt perfect.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Haymitch got me drunk on the hovercraft and I lost my marbles.”

“The doctors said you’d been on a near-lethal dose of Lunevra and were going through withdrawal. Plus anxiety. Plus shock. Plus alcohol. They had to flush it all out of your system.”

“How long have I been out?”

“Few days.”

“What happened with you?”

“Bullet pierced clean through. No damage. I was back up in —” He yawned. “— a couple days.”

She scratched his head and he made a contented sound like a cat purring. “How did you find out about this place?”

“A Gamemaker named Plutarch Heavensbee roped in a couple of the victors. They kept me out of it because they thought I was ‘too far up Snow’s ass.’ Then when Ballast died, I had a meltdown and threw a chair.”

“That’s why they didn’t interview you.”

“Haymitch dragged me out before I could do more damage. I told him about you, and he told me he could break us out.”

Haymitch didn’t seem like the sort of man who did things out of the kindness of his heart. “In exchange for what?”

Finnick looked up at her, eyebrows pinched as if surprised she hadn’t figured it out yet. “Inciting a rebellion.”

* * *

District 13 had singles units and family units, which meant Finnick and Annie had to sleep in separate rooms. It was stupid; how did they think singles became families? At night she tried to sneak into Finnick’s room, but a soldier named Boggs always caught her and told her to return to her unit. She thought she would be free here, but District 13 was just a different kind of prison.

Every morning, Annie slid her arm in a hole in the wall and received a purple tattoo with the day’s schedule. After breakfast (awful), she had a mandatory training to help her adjust to life in 13. Then lunch (very awful), followed by a daily therapy appointment with a man named Benedict who was not much better than MSA Jarrod. They even had the same clipboard. He listened silently as she talked, either not realizing or caring she wasn’t really saying anything. She’d learned that trick from Finnick. 

Her schedule was drastically different from Finnick’s. He didn’t have a purple arm tattoo, and he wasn’t allowed to tell her about what she assumed was the super-secret rebel meetings he had to attend. They only saw each other at dinner (excruciatingly awful — lukewarm nutritional paste, grey as their jumpsuits and just as flavorless), and by then Finnick was deliriously tired and unwilling to eat his dinner. She nearly had to force feed him. 

District 13 had just survived an epidemic which took the lives of most of its children. Those who survived were torn apart by grief. Public spaces held an eerie quiet, and most days Annie couldn’t shake the feeling she was living in a tomb. 

Here was what she knew: Ever since the Dark Days, District 13 had been gathering its forces to attack the Capitol. They had never intended to enlist the help of the Districts, but the epidemic made it such that they didn’t have much choice. They decided to open their doors to refugees to increase the population. They targeted victors, those with the most influence and ire toward the Capitol, to become their mouthpiece. Haymitch and Beetee had been hesitant to include Finnick — his performance was so good they thought perhaps he was the exception to the rule. It wasn’t until Finnick’s full-scale panic and violent meltdown during the Games that they realized he needed help. It was clear to Annie they only saw him as a weapon, just as the Capitol saw him as a weapon. Haymitch had been the one to suggest Haven to keep Annie safe, having been there himself many times. He had also been the one to convince President Coin that they could pull the elopement card in order to incite chaos in the Capitol. Plutarch Heavensbee, a rebel Gamemaker set to take over for Seneca Crane, helped Finnick plan their final day in the Capitol for maximum effect. He had even been the one to take down the Dolfinns archive, believing that fan groups held more power than any other community in the Capitol. They were organized, engaged, and used to putting in large amounts of work without a reward.

Coin didn’t want to bring Finnick aboard. She certainly didn’t want Annie. She thought it would call too much attention to them, and they were still too weak to be exposed. Plutarch could see promise in it — the full-scale District searches for Finnick and Annie taking up valuable resources, doubt that would spread across the Capitol when they weren’t found. Had somebody hurt them? Why would anyone hurt two beautiful people in love? 

It wasn’t enough to overtake the Capitol, but it would sow the seeds for a later harvest.

Alone, Annie didn’t garner much attention. She’d always had a quiet presence, and no matter how much time she spent with the great Finnick Odair, she would always be the sort of person other people glossed over. Finnick’s fame from the Capitol, however, had translated here. District 13 had access to Capitol TV, so everyone had heard of him. Some hated him and didn’t believe he belonged in 13. Others treated him like a messiah. The face of the impending rebellion. 

Every day he grew more disappointed with their new home. Maybe not disappointed, but that was the only word Annie had to describe the weariness that descended on him. He had dark circles under his eyes. He never smiled. He could barely meet her gaze, as if he were ashamed to have brought them here. 

Between dinner and lights-out was their only time together, and as much as Annie would have liked to use that time for sex, Finnick always fell asleep within a minute or so. However many years he’d spent without sleep were finally catching up with him. 

“I don’t like sleep,” he kept saying. At first she assumed because he was abnormally energetic and saw sleep as a waste of time, but after a while she began to get a bad feeling, like he was afraid.

* * *

One month to the day they had arrived, Finnick collapsed. He’d been carrying his dinner tray to the table. Annie was beside him in an instant. He was only out for a couple seconds before he woke back up, laughed, and, loudly enough for everyone staring to hear, said, “Guess that’s how boring the food is, huh.”

Annie started cleaning up the mess. “We need to take you to the clinic.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re really not.”

“I’m fine,” he said again. He threw his food away — nearly a crime in 13 — and stormed off.

She followed him all the way back to his unit, where she found him sitting on his bunk, his head in his hands. 

“Do you want to be alone?” she asked.

“I never want to be alone.”

She sat beside him and put a hand on his back, rubbed in what she hoped were soothing circles. “Are you afraid to sleep?”

He hesitated, then nodded.

“Why?”

“Meltons.”

"What did they do?”

It took him a long moment to answer. “There were four of them. Three men and a woman. They never hurt me, but they —” He stopped. “I fought a lot, in the beginning. And I was stronger than them. So they started drugging me. And when I woke up, I didn’t know — I was always sore. I lived with them for two years. It was Snow who took me away. Not out of kindness or because he wanted me for himself, but once I turned sixteen, I was more valuable being gifted around. That’s what he called me. His gift. The sickest part was that I was grateful to him. I thought he saved me.” 

She took his hand and entwined their fingers together. “I’m sorry.”

“Every time I fall asleep, I’m afraid I’ll wake up and be back there again.” 

“What can I do to help you feel safe?”

“It helps when you’re here with me.”

It felt strange, listening to him open up after so long obscuring and distorting himself.  They lay down, his head tucked under her chin, limbs tangled together in their usual formation so they both could fit on the narrow bed. He fell asleep almost instantly. 

Tomorrow, she would fix this.

* * *

After she got her purple tattoo the next morning, she skipped her daily training class and went to find Boggs. He was a tall, wide-shouldered man with a grim disposition. She found him guarding a door to what was probably Command, where she imagined Finnick was sitting at a conference table trying not to nod off.

“Tell me how to get a family unit,” she demanded.

“Good morning to you too, Citizen Cresta.”

She flashed him her ridiculous ring. “I’m engaged.” Was she though? “I want to be able to bunk with my fiancée. In my District, that’s a cultural norm.” It definitely wasn’t.

“That sounds like a you problem.”

“Soldier Boggs, I am a desperate woman. You’ve seen my fiancée. Not allowing us to — it’s a human rights violation, is what it is.”

“You have no idea how little I want to be talking about this.”

“Fine. Not a family unit then. Just don’t arrest me for going to his room at night.”

He took a long, aggrieved breath, like he would rather drop dead than say what he was about to say. “We have no contraceptives here, Citizen Cresta.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but every thought she had died on her tongue. No birth control, no condoms. Her father had forced Annie to get an IUD when she was a teenager, but it would be expiring soon. Still, she wasn't about to tell Boggs that.

“Don’t you want more children here?” she asked.

“We want as few accidental pregnancies as possible. We want as few rapes as possible. We have to be prepared to adequately feed, clothe, and medicate every citizen. Uncontrolled births lead to disruptions in workflow.”

“Fine,” she said. “We won’t have sex. I promise. Not that it’s any of your business.”

He gave her a look that was both somehow blank and deeply incredulous.

She'd have to try a different tactic. “What’s your favorite food, Soldier Boggs?”

He sighed as if deeply irritated. “We had a cook here. Died of flu. She made this soup I liked. Potato. Cream. A little dill.”

“And they stopped making it.”

He nodded solemnly. Compared to the usual food they ate, she could see how losing the potato soup would be a tragedy.

“Okay.” She counted items off on her fingers. “One, no sex until Finnick and I get through whatever bureaucratic red tape we have to get through. Two, once I’m cleared for work I’ll apply for a job in the kitchen. Three, I will dedicate every waking hour of my life to perfecting your potato soup and putting it back in rotation. In exchange, you and your soldiers will let me sleep beside my fiancée.” 

“I don’t take bribes,” he said firmly.

“It’s not a bribe. It’s a mutual favor.” She offered one of Finnick’s persuasive smiles. “Between friends.”

At that, he seemed to soften. Did he not have friends? Did anyone here have friends?

“Alright,” he said. “But you should start the paperwork now. Marriage approval takes a long time.”

* * *

At the end of the day, she and Finnick fell into bed together. He looked about ready to slip into sleep, but told her, “Seeing a doctor tomorrow.”

“That’s great.”

He made a disgruntled noise.

“That’s not great,” she said.

“Fell asleep in a meeting today. Coin demanded it.”

President Coin. Their fearless yet elusive leader. Finnick didn’t talk about her much, but Annie got the impression she wasn’t someone to argue with.

She scratched Finnick’s head, which seemed to be the quickest and easiest way to make him feel better.

“Remember when you used to sing to me?” he asked. 

She had one memory of singing in front of him. When she was a child, she had liked to sing, but always had to do it very quietly, or her father would yell at her for making too much noise. Once she had been in the restaurant kitchen alone, singing while preparing the day’s vegetables, and didn’t notice Finnick had walked in. When she finally did, she stopped abruptly. Then he said, _ You have a pretty voice.  _ He asked her to sing again, but she was shy and told him to go away. He didn’t. 

“I wasn’t singing _to_ you,” Annie said. “I was singing, just, generally.”

“Nope. It was for me.”

“Are you asking me to sing for you now?”

“No, I’m asking you to sing just generally.”

So she did, a lullaby her mother used to sing, and Finnick was asleep within minutes.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for the mortifying ordeal of being known.

Annie skipped everything on her arm schedule to attend Finnick’s appointment, because apparently they were the type of couple who went to each other’s doctor’s appointments. She’d never been to someone else’s doctor’s appointment before. Finnick seemed unfazed by her presence as he answered the doctor’s questions. She spun around and around on a tiny stool thinking about how the entire country knew Finnick Odair’s face, but none of them knew he was allergic to penicillin. 

“Before you arrived here, how many hours of sleep did you get?” the doctor asked. He was a short, thin man who reminded her of a sad beagle, all frowns and jowls. 

“Six hours, maybe,” Finnick said. 

The doctor nodded and wrote it down.

“A year,” Finnick added.

The doctor prescribed Finnick uninterrupted sleep for however long it took him not to be tired anymore. Annie considered it a win — no more Command meetings — but Finnick looked like he’d just been given news of a terminal disease. 

When they returned to his unit, he paced back and forth for a bit, and ran his hand through his hair a dozen times until it all stood on end. She urged him to come to bed, but he kept saying it was only two in the afternoon and he should be doing something, anything. He hadn’t taken a day off since his father started making him work the docks when he was nine. Finally she coaxed him out of his jumpsuit and into bed with her, but instead of sliding in beside her, he settled on top of her and began kissing her.

He kissed down her neck, tugged down her tank top and laved at her breast.

Her willpower was only so strong, but she managed to say, “You don’t have to do this.”

“It’s my job,” he said, and went to suck on her other nipple, but she took his face in hand and made him look at her. Everything about him had always been so measured and precise, but now he looked like a wild thing, trapped in a cage. Deliriously tired and just plain delirious.

“It’s not your job,” she said. “We only do this if we both want it.”

His face hardened into what seemed like self-disgust. He was going through something she couldn’t comprehend. Forced into the arena, forced into prostitution, forced into fame. Nothing had ever been his choice. 

He rolled off of her. Their bodies locked comfortably together as they always did. 

“What if I never want it?” he asked. 

“Then we’ll never have it.”

“And you wouldn’t break up with me?”

Breaking up with him was the most impossible thing she’d ever heard. There was simply no scenario she could devise in which she would leave him. The Benedict and Jarrod voices in her head told her that belief was disastrously unhealthy, but it was a truth that lay within her nonetheless, and not one she was willing to challenge. In District 4, in the Cresta family, it was called loyalty.

“There are a million ways to show someone you love them. Sex is just one of them," she said. "I want you to be happy. I want you to be yourself."

He was silent for so long she thought he’d fallen asleep. Then he said, “I don’t think I know who I am.”

* * *

It took weeks for Annie to realize she was actually improving. She was on medication and supplements that helped steady her, rather than the various numbing options of the Capitol. As cliche as it felt, she still had to lightly pinch herself to figure out if she was dreaming. The daily tattoo schedule was rigid and annoying, yes, but she enjoyed the structure, getting to the end of every day knowing she’d done all she had set to do, and the next day would begin with a blank slate. Things that had been a struggle for her in the Capitol were moot points here — her space didn’t have enough stuff in it to get messy, hygiene and recreation were scheduled into her day, and her exact nutritional needs were given to her for each meal. As irredeemably bad as the food often was, she had gained weight. 

She even confronted Benedict the therapist and told him he wasn’t doing a very good job. It was clear no one had ever said such a thing to him, and he replied, “No offense, but you’re a bit of a difficult case.” She was sure he did mean offense by it, but she found it extremely validating. She _was_ a difficult case. She told Benedict the truth: she was having trouble grieving her father’s death because he’d done such awful things to her, and part of her was glad she no longer had to fear him every waking minute of her life. But this relief came with an endless sea of guilt. She wondered if she was secretly glad he was dead, and if that made her a terrible person. And so she had emotionally bottlenecked and hadn’t felt anything at all.

Benedict sat up in his chair and began furiously writing on his clipboard. Ever since, their sessions started feeling like a team effort, and even when they were hard, she came out of them feeling a little lighter than when she'd gone in. 

Things were good. Better than they had been in the Capitol, anyway. And if she was being honest with herself, better than they had been in District 4, too.

Boggs didn’t outwardly bug her about her potato-soup promise, but every time she passed him, he gave her this dog-eyed look that said he hadn’t forgotten their agreement. So she skipped training one day to go to the administration level and apply for a job in the kitchen. The motto of District 13 should have been “there’s a form for that.” She had to fill out a form to request another form to be seen by a hiring specialist, who gave her another form on which she could apply for a job in the kitchen, followed by a series of questionnaires and, upon approval, even more hiring forms. 

The whole process took nearly six hours, but the next morning, she saw on her arm “training” had been replaced with “kitchen.” Before leaving her unit, she pulled off her engagement ring and hid it in a drawer. To protect it, she told herself, but couldn’t help the strange, sinking relief she felt no longer wearing it.

After breakfast she reported for duty. The head cook was a middle-aged woman named Marguerite, and her second in command was a very large, joyful-looking boy named Roderick. Compared to Marguerite’s dour coldness, Roderick was a ray of sunshine. Marguerite was a refugee from District 8 and Roderick was from 11, and they both had as many complaints about the food as Annie did.

Marguerite, who had not heard of Cresta’s, was skeptical of Annie’s skills, but Roderick, who appeared to be a big fan of the Food Wars, assured Marguerite that Annie was the real deal. 

The District 13 kitchen was decently outfitted considering the constraints they had to work with. Not only did they have to develop a menu of three meals a day for nearly two thousand people, they also had to cater to every single person’s allergies and portion requirements. There were about a dozen other part-time helpers who came in to help with one meal at a time, but Marguerite, Roderick, and Annie were the only full-time cooks. 

District 13 had five agricultural levels, and all of them were abysmal. They had no outside food sources, and their “meat” was synthetically grown in a lab. Her only comfort was that the entire kitchen staff was dedicated to preparing healthy, delicious food. Unfortunately, they had many, many obstacles to get through to make the menu more palatable. By the end of her first day, Annie knew this was where she belonged.

Finnick had been sleeping for days on end, waking up only for Annie to make him eat something and for his daily clinic visit. That night, she came into his room and, even though his eyes were closed, she could tell he wasn’t asleep. She crawled over him and kissed him. A slow smile crept up his face. “Better not tell Annie.” Then his eyes shot open and he said, aghast, “Wait, you’re not Haymitch.”

“Very funny.”

She lay beside him, and he busied himself playing with the buttons of her jumpsuit, unbuttoning and buttoning, over and over. She remembered that from when they were kids — he always had to be doing something with his hands.

“They put me in the kitchen today," he said.

“Is that why you smell like nutritional paste?”

“That’s just my natural aroma.”

Unbutton, unbutton, unbutton. Button. Unbutton the same button. Suddenly she was nervous, but it was a conversation long overdue, and now seemed as good a time as any to bring it up: “Are we really engaged, or was that fake?”

“Was it fake when you said yes?”

“I don’t know. You were coerced into doing it as a plot to our escape, and I was obliterated from months of mental torture and thought I was dreaming.”

He took her hand and thumbed over the finger where the engagement ring had been. “You don’t like the ring, do you?”

“I’ve never seen anything uglier in my life.”

“Cordia picked it out.”

“If Thirteen had a black market, I’d hawk it.”

“What kind of jewelry do you like?”

“I don’t like jewelry.”

He made a thoughtful sound. “I’ll figure something out.”

“Why? Are you going to propose again?”

“Are you going to say yes again?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“On whether or not we’re even together. We haven’t actually had that conversation.” She didn’t mention that they hadn’t really had any conversations. “For all you know, I could have a dozen suitors by now. I could be dating Boggs.”

“Are you dating Boggs?”

“Until we make it official, I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

He rolled her onto her back. “Annie, I’ve loved you from the moment you first threatened to stab me. Will you be my girlfriend?”

Yes. She was trying to say yes. But suddenly she couldn’t, not without crying. District 13 may have been a sad cement box with ugly uniforms, but no one was trying to kill them here. They may not be able to see each other as much as they would like, but she didn’t feel the same kind of urgency and longing she felt during each month they’d spent apart in the Capitol. Here, at worst, they were only ever a few levels away or across the hall from each other. Mostly, though, they were side by side, as they'd always wanted to be. As they would be, from here on out.

She nodded, and he kissed her, and for the first time in her life, she held hope for their future.

* * *

Finnick’s progress was gradual. At first he could stay awake for two hours at a time, then three and four, and after a couple weeks he was sleeping only nine hours a night. He was released from his Command room duties until he recovered, and his daily schedule mostly involved physical rehabilitation and therapy. He had a few good days, but many bad ones. Whereas Annie thrived in such a controlled, predictable environment, Finnick felt trapped. He’d spent his entire life being told what to do. The purple arm tattoo reminded him of Cordia’s intricate scheduling. Coin reminded him of Snow, and he didn’t trust her. 

Secretly, Annie was proud to see his capacity for anger and outrage returning. He was reaffirming his sense of right and wrong. But his path was long and fraught with obstacles, and Annie knew she lacked the means to help him as fully as she wanted to. She could listen to him, validate his feelings, reassure him, but she couldn’t fight his battles for him. At once they were closer than they had ever been, and still so far apart.

Then came the day Coin expected Finnick to return to Command for more super-secret rebel meetings. Annie was spending ten or more hours a day on her feet in the kitchen, and while she loved the work, she wasn’t used to doing quite this much of it. At Cresta’s, she’d only been responsible for cooking; her father did the rest. Here, she had to plan the menu, order the right amount of food from the agri levels, take inventory when it arrived, manage the team of part-time kitchen aids, and then, maybe, if she had time, cook. Somehow Marguerite had even more on her plate than Annie or Roderick. When Marguerite wasn’t working, she was on one of the admin levels, fighting for access to better food. Nutritional slop got the job done, but it made people, particularly the refugees from the Districts who were used to better food, miserable.

It was late when Annie returned to Finnick’s unit for what would likely be a couple minutes of talking, a couple minutes of kissing, and then passing out in each other’s arms. But when she opened the door, he wasn’t there. She waited in case a meeting was running long, but as the minutes ticked past, she started getting a bad feeling, and went to look for him.

He was nowhere on their floor. While she waited for an elevator, she tried to get in his head to figure out where he might have gone, but it was harder than it seemed. Finnick Odair wasn’t a person so much as a series of characters he played, and when stressed, each character would do something different. Victor Finnick would be at the gym letting off steam. Celebrity Finnick would be in the recreation area mingling with people. Prostitute Finnick, she realized with a sudden sickening feeling, would be trying to seduce her because he thought that was what she wanted, and he prided himself on being everything she wanted.

But the fisherman’s boy would be as close to the sky as he could possibly get.

She pressed G in the elevator and zoomed upward, wondering how much trouble she would be in if she got caught wandering around. The initial splash of fear hit her whenever she disobeyed, but then she remembered her father was dead and couldn’t hurt her any longer. And what would the guards do? Nothing. Tell her to go back to her room. Certainly nothing as bad as her father would have done, and anything that wasn’t a beating, she was pretty sure she could handle. 

The ground level had a couple ice block windows with murky moonlight that streamed through. It was the first time she’d seen the outside world since their day in District 4, and it gave her a renewed sense of unreality. As she wandered through the empty hallways, she twisted the skin of her arm between her thumb and forefinger. Not dreaming. Hopefully. There was always a chance this was just an extremely long dream in which, in a greater reality to which she was not privy, she was feeling physical pain. Benedict’s voice in her head asked her, _How likely is that?_

Not very. But she was living an entire life of unlikelihoods.

She heard a sound like a soft gasp and followed it, and there Finnick was, wedged between a pipe and the wall with a piece of rope in his shaking hands, knotting it over and over. Crying. Finnick Odair was crying.

When he noticed her, he wiped his nose with his sleeve and gave her one of his fake smiles. “Hey.”

She knelt tentatively beside him, unsure what to do. She’d always been the fragile one in their relationship; Finnick, the one to clean up her shattered pieces and put her back together. She wasn’t sure she’d be very good at putting him back together if he broke apart. Then again, maybe he already had.

“Hi,” she said.

“How was your day?”

“Fine. Yours?”

He unknotted his rope and started knotting it again. “All fine all the time.”

“Scoot over.” He did, and she slid into the narrow space behind the pipe, her side pressed up against his. She nodded to the rope. “Show me?”

He demonstrated a bowline knot, a timber hitch, a fishermen’s bend. He spoke in a quiet monotone. His fingers moved deftly and confidently.

“Want to try?” he asked.

She took the rope and he walked her through a simple reef knot. 

“You know, you could try some of these knots on me sometime,” she said casually. 

He didn’t say anything, and when she glanced over, his cheeks had gone red. “Annie Cresta, are you flirting with me?”

“Somebody has to, now that you don’t have the entire Capitol worshipping at your feet. Wouldn’t want your ego to shrink down to reasonable size.”

“Where would I be without you to keep me humble?” 

“Your head would be floating up to space.” 

Finnick wrapped the rope around her wrist, then around his in a figure-eight. She reached her pinky out and hooked it in his.

“Going to tell me what happened?” she asked.

“They want me to be the face of the rebellion,” he said. “Plutarch does, anyway. Coin thinks I’ve been too obedient for too long. They need someone they can associate with defiance, not cowardice.”

“You’ve never been a coward in your life.”

“Six years as the Capitol’s favorite whore doesn’t exactly say ‘bravery’ to me. Coin is right. I had a million chances to kill Snow and I never did.”

“What would it mean, to be the face of the rebellion?”

“Go back with an army. Start a war. It’ll be the Games all over again. Taking orders. Killing people. I don’t want to do it.”

“Then don’t.”

He paused for a long moment as if he hadn’t even considered the idea. 

“I’ve never been allowed to say no,” he said.

“Tell them to go fuck themselves. What are they going to do? Kick us out? Arrest us?”

“Us,” he repeated.

“Yes, us. Where you go, I go.”

For a moment he seemed resolute, but it quickly dissipated. “They won’t take no for an answer. What else am I going to do? I’m worthless to them. I’ve only ever been a body.”

“You’re not just a body. I’m done being forced into shitty situations. I’m done being afraid. We’ve given enough to this cause already. We’re not giving any more.”

He was looking at her like he didn’t recognize her. “You’re perfect.” 

She was the furthest thing from perfect. Her personality was a tower of poorly balanced rocks and the slightest wind would topple them. She'd always hated everything about herself, but she understood what Finnick loved in her. When she looked at herself through his eyes, she saw someone worth his love.

“When I met you again,” Finnick began, tightening the rope around her wrist, “I was so nervous. I’d thought about you so much. If you knew, you’d think I was crazy. I’d turned you into something totally unreal. Untouchable. When I was with the Meltons, I kept telling myself you were out there somewhere, and that was enough to keep me going. I felt so terrible for so long, knowing I had you on this pedestal, knowing no one could ever live up to that. Then when we met again, you were still everything I’d ever wanted, and every time we saw each other confirmed it even more. I kept telling myself it was enough. But it wasn't. And even now, we’re with each other every day, but it’s still not enough. I feel like I still can’t — If I get to spend my whole life with you, then it might be enough.” He let the rope slip from her wrist and then wrapped it around his hand and squeezed until his knuckles turned white. “You’re it for me. You’re all I’m ever going to want. We're finally free, and we're going to stay free. So fuck this war. I’m done fighting.”

* * *

Much later, back in Finnick’s unit, he said, “Tell me I’m allowed to say no to Coin.”

“You’re allowed to say no to Coin,” Annie said.

“Say it again.”

“You’re always allowed to say no.”


	16. Chapter 16

Despite Finnick’s refusal to become the face of the rebellion, Coin continued making him come to Command every day and sit in on hours-long meetings about legislation, resource allocation, and other bureaucratic nonsense. Haymitch and Beetee had to return home so as not to arouse suspicion, and Finnick’s became the Capitol advisor, which he wouldn’t have minded, he explained, if Coin took him seriously. But she treated him like an idiot. 

Annie was still working her ass off in the kitchen, and she only saw Finnick in the evenings, when both of them were too tired to do much other than go over their days and fall asleep. They hadn’t done more than kiss since their last night in the Capitol. She wanted him, desired him, and knew he felt the same toward her, but she also knew she had to be patient. He would come to her when he was ready, and she didn’t want to pressure him. 

One afternoon, Marguerite asked Annie to run down to one of the agri levels to dive into their emergency supply of lima beans. The day before, they’d gotten in a dozen refugees from District 6 and needed to expand the menu. On her way, Annie passed a map of Panem, one she’d passed a dozen times before, but this time, she stopped, stepped back, and looked at it. 

It was an old map, the only one she’d ever seen that still had District 13 on it. On the newer maps, the northeast corner was a big blob that ran off the page, and when kids asked about it in school, the answers were ambiguous or ignored. On this map, she could clearly see the eastern side of Panem. A red light blinked where the city center had been, presumably where they were now, but underground.

They were apparently situated on a strip of land between two enormous lakes. Her father would have said they were in “spitting distance” of either one. 

Lakes meant fish. But to get them, they were going to need a fisherman.

* * *

That night, even though they were both exhausted, Annie dragged Finnick to the map. “Look,” she said, and pointed to District 13.

“It’s Panem,” he said. 

She pointed more emphatically to the red dot. “With District Thirteen on it.”

“So?”

“So,” she said, and gestured to the big blue blobs on either side. The westward lake was larger, but east was closer. “We’re on a peninsula.” 

His eyes narrowed. He was getting there, but not fast enough. 

“I need fresh food. You need a job that isn’t listening to town hall meetings eight hours a day. Two birds, one stone. Or I guess, two fish, one lure.”

“You want me to fish.”

“I want you to use your glaring charisma to convince Coin to make teams of hunters, gatherers, and fishermen so we can eat real food.”

“Coin makes Snow look like a teddy bear. She’ll never allow it.”

“A third of their population, their _children_ , died from an epidemic that I guarantee wouldn’t have had as many casualties if they’d had a more rounded diet. We’ll never win the war if we all die before we get the chance.”

He still seemed apprehensive.

Annie pointed to the map. “Fish.” Then she pointed to Finnick. “Fisherman.”

“I don’t know. We don’t even know what the surface is like.”

“We can find out.”

“The water might be polluted.”

“But it might not.”

“We don’t have a boat.”

“You can make one.”

“I can’t just make a boat.”

“Yes you can. Lots of things float.”

“I appreciate your confidence in me, but —”

“Describe your ideal life.”

He opened his mouth to answer, but stopped and frowned as if he’d never asked himself that question before. “Having sex with you on a beach all day every day.”

Her stomach did a little flip and she could feel her face turn hot. “Second-best option.”

“On a bed.”

“Third-best.”

His mouth formed into a hard line. “Fine. But don’t get your hopes up.”

* * *

Two days later, Annie’s arm told her to report to Command at eight sharp. She got lost and arrived late, and at the one empty seat around the conference table, there stood a placard that said KITCHEN, directly across from Finnick. Coin was at the head of the table, her hands folded neatly together. She looked like the sort of woman you wouldn’t want to get into a fight with, not because she was particularly tough, but she’d play dirty just to win. Her face looked old but her eyes looked eerily young.

“Welcome, Chef Cresta.” 

“Thank you for inviting me?” Annie said, and didn’t mean for it to be a question but it came out that way anyway. She took a seat and everyone was staring at her. The guy with the weird eyebrows was clearly Plutarch Heavensbee. She knew because he was the only one with the jovial air of a man who had never felt the threat of being reaped. Finnick sat next to Plutarch and looked far older and more serious than she’d ever seen him. Boggs was guarding the entrance. Haymitch and Mags weren’t in attendance. The remaining faces were a mystery.

“Soldier Odair tells us you have an idea,” Coin said.

Soldier Odair. Annie saw one corner of Finnick’s mouth twitch, and it was all Annie could do not to laugh at his attempt not to laugh. It didn’t help that they were surrounded by serious-looking screens and holograms like something out of a TV show, and the room was as quiet as a wake. The whole thing was absurd.

“I’m sure Finn — Soldier Odair,” Annie said pointedly. Finnick coughed and shuffled his papers around. “— gave you the gist of it. I think it would improve the physical health of the District to hunt and gather fresh food from the surface.”

“You understand the amount of risk that entails,” Coin said calmly.

“All due respect, President Coin, your people can’t afford to lose another generation of children.”

Finnick was staring down at his paperwork but Annie didn’t miss how his eyes widened. Under the table, he kicked her shin lightly as if to tell her to be careful, and she kicked him back to tell him she could handle it. 

“Our experts have assured us that the nutritional needs of every citizen are met,” Coin said.

“Food is about more than nutritional requirements. Life is about more than meeting the bare minimum of survival. You need to be happy in order to be healthy, and being happy involves certain things that you may deem luxuries. The easiest and most basic of those things is food that doesn’t just meet nutritional standards, but tastes good, too.”

“Hear hear,” Plutarch said, raising a coffee cup that Annie knew only had water in it, because coffee wasn’t allowed.

Coin gave him a stern look and he hid behind a large gulp of water. 

“We can’t afford to be frivolous,” Coin said to Annie.

“Hunting and gathering are not frivolous. It’s what the human animal does. We settle into communities and feed each other, not just to survive, but as an act of love. And life isn’t worth living without love.”

Something in Coin’s eyes said she had, and would continue to, live without love, but when she glanced down at her clasped hands, Annie knew she had hit her mark, and that somewhere beneath the cement facade, Alma Coin had made certain sacrifices she had grown to regret.

Across the table, Finnick mouthed “I love you,” which everyone missed but Boggs, who rolled his eyes.

After a long moment, Coin said, “We’ll assemble two teams. Hunters and gatherers.”

“And fishermen?” Annie asked.

“We don’t have a boat, Chef Cresta.”

“I’m sure you’ve got a boat somewhere.”

Coin looked at her, affronted, like she was pushing her luck. 

“I just mean, before you went underground, somebody somewhere had to have a boat.”

“It’s been seventy years,” Plutarch said.

“A good boat lasts a lot longer than that,” Finnick said. “Chef Cresta —”

Annie cleared her throat to keep from laughing.

“— is right. There’s probably something out there, and even if it’s broken, we can fix it. And if there’s not, we can build one.” Finnick smiled at Annie in a flirty way that made her want to leap across the table and start kissing him. “Lots of things float.”

Coin nodded to the woman on her right, who jotted something down. To Finnick, she said, “Soldier Odair, I’ll expect you’ll want to lead the team?”

Finnick sat up straighter, and while he held his usual disaffected air, Annie could see the boyish excitement simmering beneath the surface. 

“I would,” he said.

“Then it’s settled. You’ll begin tomorrow.”

* * *

The next morning, Finnick had to leave well before lights-on, and Annie woke up alone. She worried about him all day, like she used to back in the Capitol. The kitchen was eerily quiet — Marguerite and Roderick had been afraid to get their hopes up when Annie had announced the plan, and all of them had a lot riding on the results of the day. Morning turned to afternoon turned to evening, and there was no word of Finnick or the team he’d left with.

For the first time since her deal with Boggs, she retired to her own unit. The lights turned off at nine. Despite her exhaustion, she lay in the dark unable to sleep for hours. 

Around midnight, there was a soft knock at her door, and for a moment she feared the worst: something had happened, and Boggs or whoever else had come to deliver the news. But when she opened the door, there was Finnick in a heavy coat and wool hat, pink-cheeked, breathing heavily like he’d sprinted down the corridor to reach her. 

Before she could say anything, he kissed her, hard and messy, tugging off his hat and walking her back into the unit. His nose was cold but his mouth warm, and he smelled like the sea. 

She managed to pull away enough to ask, “How was it?”

“Great,” he said, sliding off his coat and letting it drop to the floor. “Really great.” 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Next he tugged at the hem of her tanktop and lifted it over her head. “Nope.”

“Are we going to have sex?”

He pushed her gently down onto the bed. “Yep.”

She wanted to ask more, assure him he didn’t have to, they could slow down, but he had already slid her underwear off and began eating her out like he was starving. She threaded her fingers into his messy, sweaty hair, and there was just enough light to watch him watching her. It took only moments for her orgasm to rise and ripple through her, but Finnick didn’t stop until she’d reached her second, this one much longer and more intense. At this rate, she’d wake up the whole floor, and Boggs would rescind their agreement. 

Finnick quickly got undressed and returned to her as if just a moment apart had been too long. She was so used to him being meticulous and delicate with her, as if every touch had been planned years in advance. Not this time. This time, he was as much concerned with his own pleasure as hers. He ground against her, kissed her hungrily, and seemed to be waiting for some signal that this was okay, that he could continue, so she said, “Yes. Please." He wasted no time pushing inside her.

It was just as overwhelming as the first two times. Her fingernails dug into the hard muscles of his back, her thighs clinging to his hips, bringing him in harder, faster. 

When they switched positions, her on top, she’d never felt anything so sweet and freeing, his hands gripping her thighs, hips lifting up to meet her movements. She watched his face, eyes closed, head tilted back, throat covered with red marks. He worked her clit with his thumb, and soon she was coming again, clenching hard around his cock. He clenched his teeth to stave off coming too, and seemed to manage it only just. 

They slowed down a moment, her folded on top of him, head on his shoulder, enjoying the feeling of him inside of her as they both breathed. “One more,” he said, and guided her to her hands and knees while he settled behind her. He entered her again, and it was all she could do to bury her face in her flat, government-issued pillow and stifle her shouts. She came the hardest yet. Finnick's hands were the only thing keeping her from collapsing.

She could tell he was close. “In me,” she said. Without the Capitol’s medical contingencies, it was a risk. She didn’t care. She needed to feel him. 

He stilled and she felt his cock pulse, heard a low, satisfied groan escape his lips. She was so full of him she could hardly breathe. Her entire body ached with the sudden, intense release of all the pain they’d held between them.

* * *

Annie was curled at Finnick's side, his arm beneath her the only thing keeping her from rolling onto the floor. 

“You were right," he said. "We found a boat.”

She sat upright. “You’re only telling me this now?”

“We were busy.”

“This is important.”

“Excuse me if I don’t want to talk about fish during sex.”

“Tell me I have real ingredients to work with.”

“You have everything.” 

She wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t. But it felt as if the world had finally opened up to her. She could do what she was meant to do, and be with the person she was meant to be with. Sure, she’d have to do it in an unflattering grey jumpsuit, but it was a small price to pay for belonging.

She tucked herself close to him so he wouldn’t see her cry. He wrapped his arms around her. “So what are you going to make?”

Wasn’t it obvious? “A boil.”

“I haven’t been to a boil since I came to your restaurant.”

She pulled away and looked at him. “I never asked. How did you end up at my restaurant?”

He glanced away nervously. “I don’t think — I mean, it’s not like, I don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

So he told her about how, during the sixty-sixth Games, Mags informed him Annie’s family had moved to the Capitol to open a restaurant. While he lived with the Meltons, he had no agency or means to track her down, but when he turned sixteen and fell under Snow’s charge, he tried to make plans to visit her. Snow found out, and not one week later, Finnick’s father was dead. Finnick had resigned himself to never seeing her again, until he had a networking event at Cresta’s. He was hoping he’d at least get to see her, but he knew if he outright asked for her, he’d be putting her in danger. When Mea came by, he intentionally steered the conversation to District 4 and prompted her to ask if he knew Annie. He lied, of course, but gave her his card and hinted about his love of a good surprise party, knowing Annie’s birthday would be coming up shortly after the Victory Tour. He knew Mea would get the snub from Cordia, but he couldn’t tell Cordia to work her in without tipping her off to the entire scheme. Instead, the night of the party, he slipped something into his patron’s dinner, and when she got sick, he called Mea to tell her he’d be there. 

Snow became suspicious when he looked at Finnick’s schedule and noted that Annie had no social capital to utilize, and a standing monthly appointment was unacceptable. Finnick reminded him how important it was to maintain good relationships with restaurateurs, especially ones as successful as Cresta’s. While William had no interest or stake in the Games, Annie had essentially grown up in the Capitol, and when she took over, may have become a reliable sponsor. Snow believed it for a while, until he tried to override Annie’s appointment with an important networking event, and Finnick pushed back. 

“I should’ve just canceled on you. Better yet, I shouldn’t have given Mea my card. I shouldn’t have gone into Cresta’s at all. If I hadn’t, your dad would still be alive, and you’d still be in the Capitol, doing the work you love and not remembering I exist.”

“You say that like I was happier without you.”

“Weren’t you?”

“What part of ‘I tried to kill myself five times’ isn’t landing for you? I was miserable there. My father treated me like shit, and some days —” She stopped. No, she was just going to say it out loud. “Some days I’m glad he’s dead.”

“You said he didn’t deserve to die.”

“He didn’t. But — it’s complicated.”

“Why?”

She realized she never told him. She’d mentioned the suicide attempts but glossed over her father’s role in them. She’d been so dedicated to knowing the real Finnick Odair that she had never considered all the things he didn’t know about her. 

“Are you sure you want to know?” she asked.

“I want to know everything about you.” 

She couldn’t recall the details, but she remembered how much she had wanted to tell Finnick about her father when she was a kid. She saw how well Finnick got along with his father, laughing together as they worked, always joking and happy. When Finnick made a mistake, his father never yelled, just patiently corrected him. Annie always wanted to ask him what that was like, or if perhaps his father was cruel behind closed doors like hers was. But she had been taught not to complain, and she was afraid Finnick would think she was being a baby about it. 

But now she told him everything, though it made her feel guilty and self-pitying, “victimizing yourself,” MSA Jarrod would have said. And even as she spoke, she worried she was making a big deal of it. Her father's strikes never even hurt that much. He never left any permanent marks. In his eyes, he never hit her out of anger, only punishment. To him, that was where the line was; to her, that line didn’t exist, because he was always angry.

When she was finished, Finnick had a indecipherable look on his face, like he wanted to be angry but knew that wouldn’t help anything, and it was useless anyway considering the man was already dead. 

“Everything he did was for me,” Annie said. “He loved me. I know he did. He just showed that love in awful ways.”

“The last time I saw him, he apologized to me for the reaping. But he said he didn’t regret it. He said if he hadn’t put me in the Games, the Capitol would never die.” The corner of his mouth lifted into an almost-smile. “I think it was a compliment.”

“As close to a compliment as a man like him can get.”

* * *

For supper the next evening, they used bedsheets as table cloths and set out long pails on each table, overflowing with seafood. Annie watched in delight as people wandered in, confused, wondering where the plates and utensils were. 

“Just dig in!” Roderick called, and sat down himself to eat. He was joined by several others, and several more, and soon everyone was cracking open lobster claws and crab legs. The hunters had shot an elk, the meat from which Marguerite made into a sausage. Annie boiled corn on the cob, too, a crop that, before, they used solely for cornmeal and syrup. Annie watched people happily pick pieces of kernel out of their teeth. For once, the relative quiet of the cafeteria had livened to a roar of conversation and laughter. Someone went to their unit and returned with a guitar. She started playing and a boy started singing. An elderly couple got up to dance, and more joined them. 

Finnick was out on the water again, getting more for tomorrow, but there were already a line of volunteers eager to join the team, to set down their guns and pick up their nets. He left every day to do what he loved, and returned every night to the person he loved. Finnick Odair was finally free.

* * *

It had been six months since Annie last saw sunlight. The elevator doors opened to a hangar full of hovercrafts, murky January light flooding in from the open docking bay doors. Finnick led her by the hand into a hovercraft flown by Boggs, who had clearly lost some kind of bet.

She had no idea what Finnick had planned for her nineteenth birthday, but he had to have gone to great lengths to get clearance for the two of them to take a hovercraft off base.

They lifted off. Snow covered the ground in thick white sheets, over top of cracked concrete and rubble. She couldn’t stop staring out the window. To think, she had once taken the sky for granted. 

It was a short flight. Boggs dropped them off on the eastern shore, where a trawler was docked on the harbor. Annie was wearing one of Finnick’s heavy coats, but it was still freezing, though the sun was bright and the air still. 

“Keeping eyes on you from above,” Boggs said into their earpieces as he lifted off again. 

“Copy that,” Finnick replied.

“Is he going to listen to us have sex?” Annie asked.

“Absolutely not,” Boggs said in her ear. 

“I think it might be too cold for that,” Finnick added.

“Is that a challenge?” Annie asked.

“I hate you both,” Boggs said.

Annie had perfected Boggs’ potato soup months ago and put it in the weekly rotation. Plus, the team of gatherers had found some wild peppers, and Annie used them to make a hot sauce that Boggs sprinkled on almost everything he ate, including his morning oatmeal. He would be miserable without her. 

Finnick pulled out his earpiece and Annie did the same. She was sure it was against the rules to be so cut off from base, and she wondered if Finnick hadn’t actually gotten clearance at all. In fact, now that she thought about it, she was sure he hadn’t.

He dropped onto the trawler and turned back to lift her onto it too. The boat creaked and the sea lapped up on the shore, but otherwise the air was heavy with silence. 

“This is like the boat your father had,” Annie said.

Finnick untied the rope from its post. “You remember.”

“I remember watching out my window at dawn every morning, waiting for your boat to dock. As soon as I saw it, I ran downstairs.”

“And yet,” Finnick said as they set sail, “every time I saw you, I thought I was bothering you.”

“You were. I was just happy to be bothered.”

She leaned on the railing and watched the water rush beneath them. It was grey and smooth unlike the blue, choppy ocean of home. Finnick busied himself doing what she assumed were important boat things, until eventually she realized he wasn’t doing anything at all, and in fact looked nervous.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said quickly. 

“Tell me.”

He leaned on the railing beside her. His hair had grown out a little and returned to its natural shade of brown, his wild curls. He was outside so often that freckles peppered the bridge of his nose. He had chest hair and arm hair and leg hair now. He had grown a beard just to see what it was like, and even though she complained about how scratchy it was against her skin, she secretly loved the burn it left on her lips and throat and thighs, something to remember him by during his long days away. His carefully sculpted muscles had softened into a more natural shape, the body of a man who worked hard every day and ate well every night.

He pulled a small piece of rope out of his pocket and started playing with it. “It’s been a year since we met. Well, met again. And I wanted to bring you out here to tell you I love you, and I want to spend my life with you.”

She knew that already. So why was he nervous?

Then she realized what was happening.

“I wouldn’t be here without you,” he continued, eyes fixed on the rope in his fingers. “You think I saved you, but it’s the other way around. You kept me alive when I should have died. You gave me something to live for. Fight for. I keep thinking one day I’ll wake up, and it’ll all feel normal. But it never does. Every day I’m more grateful for you, because I know what it’s like to lose you. I never want that to happen again.” A flicker of a smile crossed his face, and he added, “And it would be great to apply for a bigger bed.” 

Annie held out her hand. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

His smile widened into a grin. “You’re getting ahead of me.”

She expected him to pull out a ring, though she didn’t know where he would have gotten one, and her mind was already racing with a contingency plan for when she’d inevitably lose it. She really didn’t like jewelry, but she was willing to make a concession for the sake of tradition. 

Instead, he wrapped the piece of rope around her wrist and tied it with a complicated knot.

“This isn’t going to last,” she said, not wanting to sound critical or unappreciative, but it was true. The rope was thin and smooth, strong. But it wasn’t gold. It couldn’t last forever.

“I know,” he said, holding her hand between his. While hers had numbed in the cold, his were still warm, far rougher than they had been just a year ago. “It’ll break eventually. And when it does, I’ll tie you another one. And when that one breaks, I’ll tie you another.”

“Why?”

“So you know I’m never taking our love for granted. I’m not just going along with it. My love for you is an active thing, a choice we’re always making, to be together.”

She slid her arms inside his coat and lifted onto her toes to kiss him. The boat steadied and the wind stopped, and for a moment, everything fell still.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting an epilogue/sequel one-shot soon that takes place 2 years later, and lines up this timeline with the events of the trilogy.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading! If you enjoyed this fic, you can [reblog the photoset](https://bettsfic.tumblr.com/post/624397200705912832/a-standing-engagement-the-hunger-games-annie).


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